When it comes to competitive intelligence, a complete list of your competition’s link profile is about as valuable as it gets. That’s why SEOs are buzzing about a new Google Webmaster Tools hack that allows users to spy on their competitors links.
According to a number of published reports on sites like SearchEngineLand.com, the competitive link hack is the real deal and, so far, Google hasn’t done anything to prevent its use.
SEO blogger Dan Petrovic is being credited with discovering this trick and posted a detailed account of how it works earlier in the week.
At the most basic level, the competitive links hack operates as follows:
- Users utilize Google Webmasters Tools to create what is known as an, intermediate link.
- Intermediate links are an identical copy of a competitors page that, when indexed, provide a list of link connected to that page. (Just be warned, this can take a couple of weeks.)
As of this writing, Google has not addressed the issue, but it seems safe to say that they will. After all, Google isn’t generally interested in providing this sort of information. In short, don’t be surprised to see this loophole closed in the very near future.
Is this a hack you’d be willing to try? Or is it a little too black hat for your tastes?