3 replies to this topic

[Mootphd]

I am hoping someone can help me please!

I am pretty new to SEO, and for a while I have been using links:yoursite.com to identify links to my site and to my competitors' sites. I don't have nearly enough -- around 250 -- and I am working on that. However, I just discovered a few other tools to get information on the site's backlinks, and these tools provide the backlinks and the PageRank of the backlinking site. MANY of these are PageRank 0! One is even the DMOZ! Please help me understand why this would be the case. Also, does a PR0 mean that my site is getting NO benefit from that backlink?

Thank you!!

Jill

[Jill]

Neither PageRank checkers nor backlink checkers work. Don't worry about it, and just keep getting high quality links to your site even if you don't see them show up in automated tools and toolbars. You can rest assured Google knows about them.

[Mootphd]

As a whole? None of them work? Really? I am SO confused!

[Randy]

None of the PageRank tools can tell you anything because the best thing they can possibly tell you is Toolbar PageRank. We mere mortals who don't work for Google cannot ever see the real PageRank. And they're two entirely different things even though they sound like the same thing.

See the pinned thread above re: why PageRank isn't important for more on that subject.

As far as backlink checkers go, none of them are accurate. Some are more accurate than others, but any that uses Google via their link: command are hopelessly flawed. Because again Google has chosen to show a random selection of backlinks they know about.

Bottom line, Jill hit it exactly. Concentrate on getting links from good quality sites, hopefully good quality sites where your target audience is already hanging out. Do that right and you get not only the link benefit from the search engines, but also get the benefit of direct traffic coming to you from the linking site.