Google find websites linked to and find websites that contain

What is the difference?

[spinnaker]

I did a search in Google on my URL. A couple of options popped up. One of them was "Find web pages that link to...." another option was Find web pages that contain the term ....".

I understand search engines base their ranking on the number of links you have from other sites. I have only one website under "linked to" but several under "contains".

What is the difference?

If I go to a couple of the "contains" sites they indeed have links to my site.

Even worse, if I do a search on my product I get even more hits for sites that have a link to my site. So why the differences in all of the numbers?

[Shak]

"contains" basically means other sites which Google has spidered and found your "url" on.

these will NOT count towards your link backs, unless they are also in "sites" which link to you.

most webmasters have 1000s of sites which show up under the "contains"

Shak

[spinnaker]

Thanks but that still does not answer my question.

What is the difference between "contains" and linked?

Why when I go to these "contains" sites are there links to my site? Or how can I make sure that these sites are linked to my site and my url is just not contained in them.

and why when I do a search I see many more sites that have my URL, that don't sho up in the "contains" or "linked to" list?

[SlowMove]

Why when I go to these "contains" sites are there links to my site?

It may have something to do with Page Rank. Google ranks the pages it spiders and only shows sites with PR4 or better in the backlinks.

Or how can I make sure that these sites are linked to my site and my url is just not contained in them.

It's not a big issue. You may find pages that contain your URL but don't link to your site. Again, Page Rank is the important issue. You want sites with PR4+ to link to your site.

[spinnaker]

OK forgive my ignorance but what are "PR4" sites?

How do I get "PR4" sites to link to me?

How do I find "PR4" sites? Or how do I know when a site is "PR4"?

[Shak]

slowmove explained it nicely, but here are 3 clear reasons:

Low Pagerank
www.yoursite.com but not a link, just your url.
non-spiderable links (certain links through re-direct scripts, such as PPC providers)

Shak

[Shak]

2 places you want to pop along to:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

Shak

[SlowMove]

[toolbar.google.com...]

You need Internet Explorer to install the Google Toolbar. After you get it installed, all you need to do is hold the mouse pointer over the PageRank indicator to get the PR of any page in the browser.

added>We're all learning here. Definitely check the other links mentioned.

[spinnaker]

Thanks for the URLs and the one to the toolbar. My page rank (3/10) is about half of that of webmasterworld.

Considering the popularity of this site I image that is pretty good?