Link Popularity Check is a free application that will instantly check the popularity of any website you enter, whether it is one of your own or a competitor's.

It is a doddle to use and quick too. Simply enter the full URL of every site you want to check and click the 'Update' button.

The software will then check how many links there are to each site from the following search engines: AlltheWeb, AltaVista, HotBot/Google, HotBot/Inktomi and MSN Search.

It does seem to return rather low results for the Google/Inktomi engines, and it's unlikely the other figures returned are 100 per cent accurate. However, it does give you a good indication of how each website is doing.

A number of sites are already listed when you download the software, but these can easily be deleted.