Hub Finder Updated

So a while ago a friend of mine created a tool called hub finder. While the tool functioned, there were some features that I thought would make it cooler. Another one of my friends had spare time, I had a bit of spare cash, so we worked out a deal and hub finder has been revised.

The gist of hub finder is to find hub sites and hub pages to get links from (as those links may help more in many modern search algorithms). The new features of Hub Finder 2.0 include:

  • optional CSV output of link research results
  • finds hub sites that may link to similar resources from slightly different pages. each link is marked with an X and links to the page the link is on.
  • allows you to set the search depth... since Yahoo! places many of the best links near the top of the backlink list this can be used to help filter noise.
  • allows you to set the number of matching domain names... this can be used to help filter noise or find the most important hubs.
  • optionally allows you to compare the backlinks for the top 10 ranked sites in Yahoo! for any term. (I may eventually add a Google API Key area for grabbing the top Google results and comparing their Yahoo! backlinks.)
  • does mix and match, allowing you to look at sites you entered, top ranked Yahoo! sites, or any mix of the two
  • allows a forced inclusion feature. using this feature can require that a site links at a specific page or site and any other combination of related resources.
  • lists how many hub pages were found out of the total number of sites analyzed.
  • if you want you can grab the source code for hub finder 2.0 here

Please let me know if you mirror the tool so I can link to some of the mirrors and please let me know what you think of Hub Finder.

Published: August 6, 2005 by Aaron Wall in seo tools

Comments

August 5, 2005 - 7:53am

Aaron you're a legend!
I use your Link Harvester pretty much on a daily basis, and now with your release of Hub Finder 2.0 I guess I'll be spending even more time on your site.

Thanks. Zak

August 5, 2005 - 8:13am

I've already found several webmasters to contact using your updated tool. I've mirrored at my bicycle website on a provisional basis. I'll let you know if I get too much traffic -- if that occurs I'll 301 to the original site.

August 5, 2005 - 2:12pm

Hi Aaron,

This is a great upgrade to already handy tool.

I have mirrored hubfinder in my SEO Tool Chest along with your great Link Harvester.

I really think you are doing a good thing making these tools open source. Keep the good work!

Thank you!

martin

August 5, 2005 - 4:54pm

This was a great tool to begin with, and these features are exactly what was needed. Thanks a million!

swedish
August 5, 2005 - 6:19pm

cool.

nuff said.

keep up the good work.

Dan
August 5, 2005 - 6:43pm

I tried using the application several times, changing the searching criteria. I kept getting the same error message

Warning: file_get_contents(http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch?query=\"bird%20watching\"%20-site:&results=5&appid=linkharvester): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden in /home/wmcommun/public_html/hounds/hub-finder/hubfinder.php on line 275

Warning: array_multisort(): Argument #1 is expected to be an array or a sort flag in /home/wmcommun/public_html/hounds/hub-finder/hubfinder.php on line 359

Didgiman
August 5, 2005 - 6:44pm

Hubfinder throws an error:
Warning: file_get_contents(http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch?query=%20-site...): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden in /home/wmcommun/public_html/hounds/hub-finder/hubfinder.php on line 275

Warning: array_multisort(): Argument #1 is expected to be an array or a sort flag in /home/wmcommun/public_html/hounds/hub-finder/hubfinder.php on line 359

August 6, 2005 - 12:25am

thanks for the kind reviews, those of you who got to use the new Hub Finder.

for those who did not, 403 errors mean the daily query limit is exceeded.

the problem with marketing these tools in any way is that demand outstrips supply (5,000 daily queries) and then they get 403 errors. hence my strong desire to have mirrors on other sites :)

will link through to the mirrors on the tool soon
cheers
a

August 6, 2005 - 7:05pm

I have 4 different reseller hosting servers and seems none of them is supporting DOM XML...

:(
Kim

Mark
August 6, 2005 - 11:29pm

Great tool!! And I love the export option! Hope you can make it so all info doesn't end up in one cell. Then it'd be perfect!! ;)

August 18, 2005 - 10:33pm

I love the tool and read seobook near-daily.

A request for version 3.0:

The ability to exclude sites, or even have a set of sites excluded by default. Some non-hubs frequently make their way into the results by their nature and size. Examples include:

www.geocities.com
members.aol.com
users.adelphia.net

Keep up the great work!

A Reader
August 19, 2005 - 4:18am

upgrade to php5 !!

Hubfinder Author
August 20, 2005 - 3:18am

Why upgrade to PHP5?

August 20, 2005 - 5:53pm

I have mirrored both Link Harvester and Hub Finder (as noted above). After reviewing my server logs, I noticed that many users repeated the same query over and over. I realized that the results links all in open in the same window and when they wanted to come back (using the back button) this caused the tools to repeat the query.

I just modified the script to open the results links in a new window to save some server load and API queries. Don't forget to escape the quotes on target=\"_blank\".

Thanks again for these great tools. They are getting alot of use on my mirror site!

martin

October 28, 2005 - 12:21pm

Good work. Great tools. Just wanted to let you know that I have mirrored both http://www.seolife.com/link-harvester and http://www.seolife.com/hub-finder at SEOlife.com.

Any requested new features under development?

Thanks, Mark.

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