Does anyone have suggestions on automated ways to verify that backlinks are valid? I realize there are many criteria for determining this so I am open to all sorts of suggestions.
A few example criteria would be backlinks coming from specific domains, hosts, etc. but what about criteria that is not so easy to determine such as age of the link, subject matter of the site where the link originates, etc.
P.S., Although the above is a general question, I’m specifically looking for how to do this in Java.
I would suggest you ask the generic question on Programmers because determining what is a “good” backlink is not specific to any language.
If you have the criteria, try implementing them for yourself first and then ask a specific question if you don’t come along.
The java.net.URL Class handles addresses well you can get the domain and other stuff nicely from there.