36 replies to this topic

[qwerty]

So, if abc site has a PR6 and links to www.mydomain.com/keyword, then my site will show up when I type links:www.mydomain.com/keyword into Google.

One small correction: the command is link:www.domain.com, not links:www.domain.com.

And yes, the link command is pretty much only useful to webmasters.

[Debra]

Please help me understand this comment......

Also remember that Google will only display backlinks -- internal or external -- from pages to which they have assigned a PR value of 4 or higher.

do you mean the page that shows in the backlink results must have a PR4 or better?

[Debra]

It's been my experience that Google DOES show sites in the backlinks with PR of less than 4. The PR of a site is not the criteria used in the backlinks. Google shows all the sites it has indexed when you ask it to.


To illustrate, I used highrankings.com - Jill's parent site to demonstrate. I used both the Google toolbar and the link: command to find these links:

On page:
http://www.google.co...&start=120&sa=N

I found:
http://www.joeant.com/DIR/cat/14724/ - PR 1

On page:
http://www.google.co...f&start=40&sa=N

I found:
http://www.moreover....af@e-tax.org.uk PR 2

While there are not many, there were pages showing with less than PR4

[compar]

Please help me understand this comment......



do you mean the page that shows in the backlink results must have a PR4 or better?

Yes that is correct as far as I understand. If the page from which the inbound or backlink comes from -- including the web sites own internal pages -- does not have a PR of 4 or higher Google will not display it in the listing.

That doesn't mean they don't know about the link or may not even use it when evaluating the site, but they will not display it in their list of backlinked sites.

[compar]

It's been my experience that Google DOES show sites in the backlinks with PR of less than 4. The PR of a site is not the criteria used in the backlinks. Google shows all the sites it has indexed when you ask it to.


To illustrate, I used highrankings.com - Jill's parent site to demonstrate. I used both the Google toolbar and the link: command to find these links:

All I can tell you Magnolia is that we had a heated discussion on this very subject in another thread -- I went looking for it and can't find it -- and Jill and another moderator told me in no uncertain terms that this is the case. I believe they provided a link directly to Google's own site where Google said so.

We also know the the entire PR and backlink section of Google seems to be less than perfect at the moment. So that may be the explanation for your findings, but don't believe me -- you wouldn't want to create a precedent -- ask Jill.

[Jill]

Ok, guess I better fire up my IE so I can look at some backlinks and PR. It's been "common knowledge" that Google doesn't show backlinks that are less than PR4, but perhaps that's changed recently.

I'm going to look at your links, Debra and check out some others to see what I can see. One thing I do know is that the Google toolbar's ranking measurement has been awfully flakey for months, so that could also be a contributing factor to what you're seeing.

Be back in a bit...

Jill

[compar]

Magnolia,

While we are waiting for Jill's return why don't you have a look at Qwerty's last post to this thread. http://www.highranki...topic=483&st=15

[qwerty]

...keeping in mind, of course, that just because it came from qwerty, that doesn't make it the gospel truth

I'm always open to being proven wrong. Facts tend to change in this business pretty quickly, and they're rarely announced by anyone "official". Somebody has to find out at some point that what we all thought was true isn't anymore, and then they have to prove it to us. Fun.

But when I first saw those links, my first thought was that maybe the PR display on the toolbar was acting up, or maybe the SERPs were being served up from one datacenter that didn't have accurate PRs for those sites.

[Debra]

I'm always open to being proven wrong

I don't want to prove you or anyone else wrong qwerty, am merely pointing out that Google has listed sites with less than PR 4.

I backlink sites daily, and I've never noticed that they only listed sites with PR4+

[Jill]

I didn't have time to check too many, but definitely found a few PR3 sites listed as backlinks to my site.

Debra is definitely right!

Another SEO myth dispelled. WTG, Debra!

I think what we should really say is not that Google doesn't show backlinks that are less than PR4, but that they "tend not to." Or they don't show them all. It's not an all or nothing proposition, just like everything else in SEO!

There is no black and white. No true or falses. No yes or no's!

Which is why it's always so much fun!



Jill

[qwerty]

Well, I'm still not absolutely convinced of this, just because we all know that the PR display on the toolbar has been awfully buggy lately. But I'll keep an eye on it.

However, I'm happy to agree that there's no black and white, in SEO or pretty much anything else

[Jill]

Take a look for yourself, Bob. It is pretty clear that you'll see sites less than PR4. This is one thing that's easy enough to confirm!

Jill

[qwerty]

It does seem likely, and like I said, I'm certainly open to the idea that this has changed (or even that it's never really been completely true). I just feel that I'll need to look at this over time because of my doubts about the accuracy of the toolbar's expression of PR lately. I'm going to bookmark that JoeAnt page and keep an eye on what the toolbar says its PR is.

But I'll definitely soften my language from "Google does..." to "It appears that Google generally..."

[qwerty]

OK, it's true. I found a page that I know has a PR of about 2 and probably always has, and it's showing up in a link: search. As Bing Crosby used to say in those orange juice commercials, "there's no doubt about it."

[dzinerbear]

[quote name='dzinerbear' date='Aug 27 2003, 12:33 PM'] [/QUOTE]
Because a lot of people think that you will be found sooner from inbound links. And some will claim that submitting your URL may actually delay Googles time to indexing your page. [/QUOTE] [/quote]
Okay, I've got some concrete info for you on this one.

I uploaded a new gallery to my site last week. I think it was Tuesday. And I said that I wouldn't submit it Google using the "add a URL" feature so we could see if Google would find it any sooner. Also, Compar said that he had heard that uses the "submit" feature might even delay your site's entry into Google.

After I promised I would not use the submit feature, I thought: Forget this, this page has a really good keyword phrase and I need the traffic, so I submitted it to Google. I've been doing an allinurl everyday all week, and just this morning, that site is in. A site I did another domain on August 16 also just got in today and it hasn't been showing up.

So, I'd have to say that using the "add a URL" feature definitely does not seem to have a delay on get new pages on an already indexed site into Google. Whether using the "add a URL" feature actually got Google to the site, or whether it got there on its own, is another issue. I wouldn't know how to tell.

Dzinerbear