279 replies to this topic

[Randy]

Google's link: command is "broken" Dave. They only show a respresentation of the links they know about. However that doesn't mean they don't know about all of those links and may be using them internally to help determine ranking.

There's not a thing you can do to fix it, since it's not really anything being broken. Just the way Google chooses to work these days.

[OldWelshGuy]

HI Dave, welcome to the forum.

If you want to know if google knows about the links, then go to the page with the link on, and check the cache, if your link is showing in the Google cache your getting benefit, if it isn't then your not. It might be on the page, but will only benefit you when it is cached.

[webkid_san]

I have been working on getting links for one of my sites and its been more than 3-4 month and I have got about 60 links or so ...but still when I check back links using :

link:http://www.mysite.com/

google does not give me any result ... does any one know how long does it take before Google updates its backlinks ... or is it some other way I can possibly check back links other than what I stated ...

[davidhaze]

Thanks for the welcome,

Google must be doing something strange - I can show cached google pages with links to my website on them, but Google show no links at all to my website?

Google must have a filter of sorts?

Thanks for the feedback.
Regards
Dave

[Michael Martinez]

Searching Google for references to your domain name is the most accurate approach you'll be able to make for finding backlinks, but as you look deeper into the practice, you'll find that many listings may be only mentions of a URL in the text (not actual links).

Although it's a popular practice among SEO specialists to search Yahoo! for backlinks, all you get from doing so is information on how many backlinks Yahoo! is reporting. It tells you absolutely nothing about how many links Google has indexed to your site.

Some people justify the practice by saying it at least gives you a benchmark, even if you cannot compare it directly to anything provided by Google.

Well, I've been giving that matter some thought. By averaging the number of reported hits for some common words across Yahoo!, MSN, and Google, we can approximate the relative size of Yahoo!'s database. MSN reports they have indexed more than 5,000,000,000 pages. Google claims to have indexed more than 8,000,000,000 pages. Yahoo! may have indexed more than either of them, but I cannot find any recent data.

So, look at these numbers:

"copyright"
http://www.google.co.....&q=+copyright
Google: 1,530,000,000
http://search.yahoo....eb-t&fl=0&x=wrt
Yahoo!: 1,580,000,000
http://search.msn.co...right&FORM=QBRE
MSN: 1,346,443,917

"faq"
http://www.google.co.....coff=1&q=+web
Google: 1,960,000,000
http://search.yahoo....eb-t&fl=0&x=wrt
Yahoo!: 1,510,000,000
http://search.msn.co...=+web&FORM=QBRE
MSN: 837,237,714

"contact"
http://www.google.co.....=1&q=+contact
Google: 2,110,000,000
http://search.yahoo....eb-t&fl=0&x=wrt
Yahoo!: 1,670,000,000
http://search.msn.co...ntact&FORM=QBRE
MSN: 952,280,974

"we"
http://www.google.co.....2coff=1&q=+we
Google: 1,070,000,000
http://search.yahoo....eb-t&fl=0&x=wrt
Yahoo!: 1,530,000,000
http://search.msn.co...q=+we&FORM=QBRE
MSN: 1,142,557,656

"the"
http://www.google.co.....coff=1&q=+the
Google: 4,300,000,000
http://search.yahoo....eb-t&fl=0&x=wrt
Yahoo!: 4,080,000,000
http://search.msn.co...=+the&FORM=QBRE
MSN: 2,649,409,107

"link"
http://www.google.co.....off=1&q=+link
Google: 938,000,000
http://search.yahoo....eb-t&fl=0&x=wrt
Yahoo!: 564,000,000
http://search.msn.co...+link&FORM=QBRE
MSN: 296,415,227

CRUNCH THEM OUT --
Google: 1,530,000,000
Google: 1,960,000,000
Google: 2,110,000,000
Google: 1,070,000,000
Google: 4,300,000,000
Google: 938,000,000
Total: 11,908,000,000
Avg: 1,984,666,666

Yahoo!: 1,580,000,000
Yahoo!: 1,510,000,000
Yahoo!: 1,670,000,000
Yahoo!: 1,530,000,000
Yahoo!: 4,080,000,000
Yahoo!: 564,000,000
Total: 10,934,000,000
Avg: 1,822,333,333

MSN: 1,346,443,917
MSN: 837,237,714
MSN: 952,280,974
MSN: 1,142,557,656
MSN: 2,649,409,107
MSN: 296,415,227
Total: 7,224,344,595
Avg: 1,204,057,432

The known ratio of pages between MSN and Google is .625 (that is, 5 billion divided by 8 billion). So, to test this average, you compare it to .625 of 1.984 billion. You get 1.24 billion, which is very close to our calculated average for MSN.

Hence, the Yahoo! average can be compared to the Google average by a little division: 1.822 billion divided by 1.984 billion. You get .9182....

In other words, Yahoo!'s database probably is about 92 per cent the size of Google's database. So, for any backlink check on Yahoo!, assume that Google would (on average) -- if it were reporting accurate backlink data -- give you about 8.6 per cent more hits (of Yahoo!'s total).

There would, of course, be some variation. I'm not sure of how to predict the variance. This data set is extremely small. So, I would say it's safe to assume that Yahoo! has a database about 90 per cent the size of Google's, and that Yahoo! backlinks are approximately equal to 90 per cent of Google's backlinks.

But that doesn't mean all of Yahoo!'s backlinks are in Google's database. Clearly, the numbers above show that Google and Yahoo! are indexing content differently (or different content, or both).

[kology]

For backlinks to be counted, Google first needs to reindex the site that has the links to your site. How often that happens depends on the site. There is never any guarantee that Google will in fact reindex that site.

Another point to consider is that to my experience Google doesn't properly report back all back links (link:www.myurl.com). For the most part I only see links with PR3 and better.

Personally, I'd stop worrying about when Google reports on these links and instead focus on the links themselves. Are they good links and do people actually follow the link to your site. Remember, a linking strategy should first drive organic traffic to your site and it's impact on the SERPs should be a secondary consideration.

[torka]

Dave, Google doesn't show all the links they know about when you use their "link:" command. They haven't done so for a long time, in fact. Essentially, it's useless -- if what you want is a complete list of the links pointing to your page.

That's what Randy was talking about when he says the "link:" command is broken. It simply isn't going to give you the information you're seeking.

This does NOT mean that Google doesn't know about the links pointing to your page, or that they're not counting them. It simply means that they've chosen to not display all the links they know about when you use their "link:" command.

--Torka

[torka]

The display on the "link:" command in Google has nothing to do with PR, or anything else consistent that anybody outside of the Googleplex has been able to figure out so far.

Basically, they show a subset, a selection, some of the pages they know about that link to your page. The criteria for which selection of links they show appear to change from time to time.

One day, you may have a dozen links listed. The next, none. A few weeks later, a handful -- but mostly different ones from the ones listed the first time around.

Just because a link doesn't appear on a "link:" query, this does NOT mean that the link is unknown to Google, or that it isn't counting when ranking your site.

If the page with the link to your page appears in the Google results and has a cache, then they know about the link and it counts in your favor. Whether it appears on the "link:" query or not.

You simply cannot rely on that command to show you any useful or meaningful information these days.

--Torka

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi Dave,
that was what I meant when I posted

check the cache, if your link is showing in the Google cache your getting benefit

If Google knows about it, then your getting link benefit from it, forget about what the silly link: command tells you, Google enjoy playing with their pets lol

[Leann_Pass]

Agree with everything said above....adding....

If you want to see your backlinks, forget G (they are random and inaccurate with their BL reporting) and check Yahoo.
Just go to Yahoo and type in link:http://www.yourdomain.com and you can see how things are fairing for you. Good Luck!

Leann

[Michael Martinez]

I have been working on getting links for one of my sites and its been more than 3-4 month and I have got about 60 links or so ...but still when I check back links using :

link:http://www.mysite.com/

google does not give me any result  ... does any one know how long does it take before Google updates its backlinks  ... or is it some other way I can possibly check back links other than what I stated ...

You can see how many references to your URL Google has indexed. They may not all be links.

The syntax for the search is to put the URL in quotes:
"http://www.google.com/"

And, of course, you want to subtract out all the pages from your own site:

"http://www.your.domain/" -site:www.your.domain

[Jill]

Moved the last posts into the mega backlink checking post as it's all been discussed many times here....read through the whole thing for more info...

[Webby]

Yeah, Google has been useless for keyword research since really launch. As Google is most peoples search engine its natural webmasters and SEOs type in link: in the search box at Google because they comfortable with the interface and used to it. It is for all tense and purposes however useless. The reason they only show a small sample btw. according to a Google engineer who was pressed on the issue at one of the SES conferences is that Google doesnt want mass link trading and link auctioning so they decided to make link research much harder by giving only a small sample.

But is it pure backward links that are important?
I dont think so, I think its what I refer to as domain popularity (technically speaking IP popularity). I recently wrote an article on the subject which might be useful for this theme. Its a bit long but I think it clears up the whole link research question somewhat.

__________________________

Domain Popularity

A buzz phrase for some time now in SEO circles has been 'Link Popularity'. Rightly so as well. Google were the first to include link popularity into their ranking criteria in the form of PageRank and were closely follow by inktomi driven search engines as well as others that had the capability to factor in link popularity.

Then came the inevitable. If the ranking criteria could be manipulated, then you can bet it would be. Link spam became a plague first on guestbooks, then forums and finally blogs. Also of course, there were a great number of link farm schemes and huge link networks and link auction sites. Google reacted well it has to be said, and eventually discounted a large majority of the guestbook link spam, some forum and a lot of the linkfarm and organised link network shenanigans. Also my research has shown that Google now doesnt not count all links on sites where links are sitewqide (forum footer for example) I would estimate between 2-5 links only are counted. Hence a sitewide link is not that much better than just a single link on say a homepage (BTW, not the case for MSN, although this is set to change).

Therefore it is not the number of inbound links that are important, but the number of different domains that link to you.

It is very important to remember that. Especially if you are using Google for your backward link checking. I am fairly confident I can pronounce

"Link Popularity" is dead, long live "Domain Popularity"!

The Google backward links feature is far from ideal nowadays for link research. Webmasters who use the backward link feature on Google should drop it immediately if they are serious about getting the real picture on inbound links.

If you must use Google for your backward link checking, be sure to discount all links from your own domain and just count one link from those domains linking to you. You can do that, or you can be savvy and go elsewhere for your linkage research, such as Yahoo!.

Fortunately, Yahoo! search have far more options and features when it comes to checking pure backward links. It also however has an extra search option called linkdomain:. But lets look at what you can do with Yahoo!s link: command.

The simplest form is a basic link:http://www.yourdomain.de/ Or even link:http://www.ihredomain.de/sub_page.html (note: you need the ‘http://’ for this feature to work).

Here you get the total number of links going to the particular page specified after the link: command. It is not filtered in anyway and is far more comprehensive and accurate than the Google backward links option. You can however make it even more relevant in that you remove your own internal links (NOT an option on Googles link: feature). To do this you simply add the ­-site: option.

For example in Yahoo! try the following:

link:http://www.yourdomain.com ­-site:www.yourdomain.com

or

link:http://www.yourdomain.com/sub-page.html ­site:www.yourdomain.com

Here you get all those pages that are linking to your specified page from an external domain. Far more important than internal linkage numbers.

Of course you can use this to analyse your competitors links quite effectively, in fact I should imagine it will be used more on competitors sites than your own. I would recommend you do check your own however and follow a few of the links to see what anchor text / alt attribute text is being used and importantly if it ther anchor is appropriate.

There is as mentioned another option at Yahoo! called linkdomain: This option for me is the most powerful of all link research type options on any search engine. What this does is tell you what domains are linking to ANY of our pages (or your competitors).

Eg. linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com (note: there is no http:// in this search option)

Now we have a list of all external domains that link to your site. You also however have your own occasionally so it is time to use the exclude filter again… linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com ­-site:www.yourdomain.com

You can add multiple exclusion filters so for example if a competitor has a sitewide link on a huge website, rather than clicking through hundreds of pages, exclude the domain but don’t forget to count it once (don’t forget it is the number of domains not the number of links that count!)

Eg. linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com ­-site:www.yourdomain.com ­-site:www.sitewidelink.com

The above will show just those domains that link to you without showing your own site, or the site which has a large amount of links to you (sitewidelink.com).

This is very powerful. It means you can quickly check those domains that link to your own (to check link text) or those of your competitors (find potential link partners for your own site). It is far more accurate than the Google backward link feature and makes researching for a link campaign that much easier. You will get the odd multiple link from ame domain in result. There is a limit to how many -site: filters are practical. It is still however an excellent overview of your domain popularity providing you use the exclude filters wisely.

For smaller sites there are two online tool that provide decent domain popularity and also show separate IP numbers.

www.555webtemplates.com/backlinks-tool.asp
(Checks maximum backlinks visible by Yahoo (limited to 1000)

A new one written from a guy in my German language forum is...
www.seo-consulting.de/online-tools/backlink-link-check.php
(This cross checks with Google and analyses 200o links.
The above I stress are only useful for when there are < 2000 backlinks.

[edit] oops sorry Jill, I just read you didnt want new post on this thread. Feel free to move / delete.[/edit]
_______________________

Hope that helps
Alan

Edited by chrishirst, 03 May 2005 - 02:55 AM.

[rimian]

Hello,

I've been devloping websites for years now so i've got a lot of pages linking back to my site. These are the sites i have developed and placed links back to myself as the webmaster.

here's my confusion.

when i search google for these backward links i get about 52 results returned. my immediate thought was that google hasn't indexed all of them [there should be several hundred]. but then when i run a search for a specific link that hasn't turned up in the 52 previous results i find it easily.

so it seems google has omitted some results to guarantee relavant content. is this true?

also: someone said google only lists the first 40k of a page. these links are often at the bottom of my pages.

what is happening?

sorry i cannot be more specific. thanks in advance

[cyoung35]

I have been aquiring new links from related sites that are listed in the google index for about 1 and 1/2 months now and when I check my link popularity with google I don't see the number of back links changing. Can someone explain why that is, or am I just impatient?