Solving Incoming Links Widget Problem in WordPress
If you are a WordPress user, then you’d probably notice the “Incoming Links” widget that reside in your Dashboard. Recently there’s been an issue with error message being displayed. Well, if you are looking for a solution, then read on.
The “Incoming Links” widget works by searching the web for any page that is linking to any page in your website (read my post about inbound link) And the way to do that is by taking advantage of the Google Blog Search.
By sending a GET request, one can get a search result in an RSS output. Then the WordPress engine (and its built-in function) will parse the RSS and show the result in widget that you can custom (how many records to show, etc.)
Well, if it’s a built-in functions, then why it’s not working?
Did WordPress made a flaw in the development phase?
I don’t think a world-class team such as the WordPress Development Team, would make such silly mistake. The one reason that might cause you the error, is probably the wrong parameter for the GET request (read about HTTP GET request).
Since a response, which is the output of a GET request, is replied upon the parameters that was sent. Then sending the proper request parameter(s) is definitely an important thing to look into. So, don’t expect something in return if you can’t define your request in the correct way.
Luckily, you don’t need to be a web programmer to solve the “Incoming Links” issue. All you have to do is: change the GET request to the correct syntax (the one that is acceptable by Google Blog Search). And here it is:
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=link:[your-domain]&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss
Remember to replace the highlighted syntax with your domain name
Now that you have the right command, you can change the broken “Incoming Links” Widget’s RSS Feed URL. Just mouse over the Title part of the Widget (on the far right side of the “Incoming Links” text) and you will notice a “Configure” link being shown, click it and change the URL with the new one.
Configuring WordPress Incoming Links Widget
Don’t forget to click one the “Submit” button after you finished with all the available options there.
That’s it.
Unless Google made some tweaking with their Blog Search Feed, that is all you have to do.
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nichive on 
Roger on 
The issue I am seeing is that the new syntax given here works in a browser, however, WordPress (3.2.1) refuses to save the requires braces around the domain name.
… link:[http://address.com] …
is being saved as
… link:http://address.com …
and ^^ this syntax doesn’t work.
WordPress 3.2.1 sure has some issues that need to be taken care of. I have write one bug about theme upload
This was just what I was looking for. I followed your instructions and the RSS feed now works perfectly/ Thank you!
pl help no solve my issue so plz plz plz help me
RSS Error: A feed could not be found at http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=link:www.dramakorner.com&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss
Help please
RSS Error: A feed could not be found at http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=link:dramakorner&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss
thank you thank you thank!