keyword search and following links
keyword search
The easiest way to find similar pages is to do a search on the same keywords as you use for your page. Use the standard search engines for that. Well, there is nothing much to add to that...
following links
When you have found some similar pages, you can start to follow links from these pages, they can bring you to similar pages not listed by the search engines. There are some ways to make this easier. Webrobots can get whole sites to your own HD, including an overview of external links.
spiders
Spiders are also web robots, finding and displaying links. Check for a list of spiders at:
Some search engines offer backward surfing: find the pages that have a link to a certain URL. Search engines and backward surfing both are a tool to find out which websites on similar subjects exist. Webcrawler's Surf Backwards is superior (but slow) because it can show how much links there are to websites. You can select the most linked to, supposing that these atrack the most visitors. Repeating from the introduction:
The http protocol gives information about the "refering page", the URL from which the link is made. There are possibilities to make this visible.
1. webcounter
Some webcounters offer that possibility, but I do not know of any that offers it for free. Websitestory gives you a one-week free trial period. It needs some adaptions to your website, which should be supported by your provider (mine does not).
2. Perl script
Finding the "refering page" should also be possible using a Perl script. Again, your provider should support this. I haven't tried this.
3. zero-frame
There is another trick to find the "refering page". It is not so clean, but I tried it out, and it worked. It works only when you are on-line though. You have to get your own server. Since I am on Win95, I used O'Reilly's WebSite. It is based on a suggestion from Websitestory. It needs the following:
- frames in your page
- a running server program, with capability to log the "refering page". On O'Reilly's WebSite, put access log format on Windows (WebSite Extended).
- your IP-number (if you have a PPP account in which your provider gives you a -different- IP-number each time you log in, you first have to log in. Check you IP-number (in Win95 WINIPCFG.EXE in C:/WINDOWS shows it, I think Trumpet just shows it when you log in).
- build a zero-frame into your page and link it to your IP-number, where you have a file called "empty.htm" (or whatever). If you don't know how to do that, check some HTML-sites.
When someone asks for your page now, it will ask to get the "empty.htm" from your server. In your server's access log (among other things) the refering page is mentioned.
4. your provider's access log file
Your provider might offer you insight in the access.log file of the server. I have not seen the refering page mentioned there, but it might be possible. If your provider does not offer insight, you can try to download the access.log file with FTP. This usually is an enormous (text)file.