Why is google picking up backlinks, but not showing them?

[chrisnrae]

Ok, here is the deal. I have two sites sitting at PR0. Both sites have been offically launched for close to three months now.

Site 1: Last month, google had indexed 25 of the subpages, but none of the backlinks, even though pages I had links from showed my link in their updated cache. So, I figure wait. Well, this month, I am at one backlink and only 3 of the subpages are indexed now. Again, many other sites are cached with a link to me, PR4 and 5 pages. So, why isn't google showing them as a backlink?

Site 2: Last month, google had indexed 39 of the subpages, but none of the backlinks, even though pages I had links from showed my link in their updated cache. So, I wait. This month, google now only has four of the subpages listed and again, the backlinks are showing in other caches, but google is showing backlinks ZERO. YET, do a search for my pages targeted keywords and a PR5 page linking to me comes up number 128. The site does not have the search term on the page anywhere other than my link.

I am considered a whitehat SEO... no hidden text, dirty links, no link farms... no software doing automated queries or LE requests. Any ideas? I am flustered at this point, LOL.

[Chris_D]

Hi chrisnrae

Try this for me.

Do a link check on www-sj.google.com

ie link:http://www.your-web-site.com

Then look closely at the serps - scroll to the very bottom. Count them. Look at the order - internal links from your site; and external links.

Then go and do the same link search at www.google.com on the 'current' index.

Ignore the number on the top - scroll to the very bottom and count them

Then compare the order they are in between -sj and www.

Let me know what you find!

Chris_D

[chrisnrae]

Hmm... maybe I confused everyone with my post or didn't word it correctly? I have NO backlinks to count in either... 0 for the one site in either www or sj. The other site has none in www and 1 in sj. That is the problem. I have accquired backlinks, google has taken pictures of them (cache) but refuses to give my site credit for them (even though they are all on PR4 and 5 pages, related to their industries). and it has been over two months since the sites linking to me were crawled and cached with the link to my sites.

[Dreamquick]

chrisnrae,

If you really want to get puzzled try this one - I show only 3 backlinks (www & sj) for my PR6 (via toolbar) site despite the fact that I know I have links from at least one PR8/PR9 (via toolbar) homepage.

The site wasn't PR6 before I got these new links so clearly they are useful and are being counted, plus I can even see the traffic coming from them, which at the end of the day is what I really care about.

I will say this again PR according to the toolbar is very often a best-guess and backlinks wont show if they are under PR4.

- Tony

[chrisnrae]

LOL, I won't even exchange with a page that isn't PR4 or above. These links not showing are mainly from PR5 pages, some PR4. All I know is a site with PR5 incoming links that has had them for months now from highly related sites should not still be showing PR0 when the links are in the cahces of the sites linking to it. Sigh. Another month I guess. I just wish I knew WHY google was doing this, LOL. I have another site in this industry that some of these same sites link to (no, they are not from other sites of mine, LOL) that count in my backlinks.

[takagi]

Hi chrisnrae, both the page that has the link as the page that is linked should have a high PR4 or higher. So Google will show no links in your case, since these two sites have only PR0 pages. The PageRank is recalculated using the data spidered (collected) before the Google Update. Previous update was on April 11 using data mostly spidered in March. So links to your homepage added after these pages were spidered, are not used in the calculation of your current PR0. In a few more days the next PR will become available (let's hope). It is possible that a more recent cache is shown than the page that was used for calculating the PR.

[Chris_D]

So Chrisnrae,

Let me get this right. you have 2 sites.

You did a link check on
- www-sj.google.com and on
- www.google.com

ie link:http://www.your-web-site1.com
and link:http://www.your-web-site2.com

and you got:
0 for link:http://www.your-web-site1.com on www-sj.google.com
0 for link:http://www.your-web-site1.com on www.google.com
0 for link:http://www.your-web-site2.com on www.google.com
1 for link:http://www.your-web-site2.com on www-sj.google.com

for the above tests.

And you have 25 pages in your-web-site1 domain, each which has a link to your-web-site1.index.html and you have 39 pages in your-web-site2 domain, each has a link to your-web-site2.index.html

Is that correct?

Chris_D

[chrisnrae]

takagi... the links that are not showing are OFF site links from other sites I do not own linking to me :).

ok.. lets break this down:

site1: www.bluewidgets.com

link:www.bluewidgets.com in www: 0
link:www.bluewidgets.com in www-sj: 1

allinurl:www.bluewidgets.com in www: 34
allinurl:www.bluewidgets.com in www-sj: 4

Actual number of pages in the www.bluewidgets.com site is 40.

Some example OFFSITE links from someone ELSE's site to mine:

www.pagelinkingtome.com - PR5 - cache in www and www-sj of the page show my link on it.
www.pagefromanothersitelinkingtome.com - PR5 - cache in www and www-sj of the page show my link on it.
www.yetanothersite.com - PR5 - cache in www and www-sj of the page show my link on it.

Just a small sampling of examples.

*******

site2: www.freshoranges.com

link:www.freshoranges.com in www: 0
link:www.freshoranges.com in www-sj: 0

allinurl:www.freshoranges.com in www: 25
allinurl:www.freshoranges.com in www-sj: 1

Actual number of pages in the www.freshoranages.com site is 46 I believe.

Some example OFFSITE links from someone ELSE's site to mine:

www.fruitrelatedsite.com - PR5 - cache in www and www-sj of the page show my link on it.
www.fruittopicalsite.com - PR5 - cache in www and www-sj of the page show my link on it.
www.anotherseperatefruitsite.com - PR5 - cache in www and www-sj of the page show my link on it.

Just another small sampling.

Also, I must add that I do this full time, so I am aware of what I am doing. I know how to gain backlinks and have sites sitting on top of the serps in very competitive categories... so, this isn't a case of newbie-non understanding. I am also considered a whitehat, so this isn't a banning issue. It is driving me nuts as the WHY this is occuring. I was hoping maybe some other members, google guy included, could ofer some observations about why this may be occuring.

[chrisnrae]

In a few more days the next PR will become available (let's hope). It is possible that a more recent cache is shown than the page that was used for calculating the PR.

I have the code installed for the updated PR and it is still PR0 with the new PR and with no backlinks, that doesn't surprise me. What I want to know is WHY the backlinks aren't being picked up. Both of these sites had the above listed links from PR5 pages before the march crawl.

[Chris_D]

Hi chrisnrae

Sticky me the URLS

Chris_D

[takagi]

Example 1:

link on page www.site-A.com/links.html (PR5) to www.site-X.com/index.html (PR3). No other links to www.site-X.com/index.html

Search for

link:www.site-X.com

will give 0 pages because the PR of www.site-X.com is too low.

Example 2:

link on page www.site-A.com/links.html (PR3) and on www.site-B.com/links.html (PR3) to www.site-X.com/index.html (PR5). No other links to www.site-X.com/index.html

Search for

link:www.site-X.com

will give 0 pages because the PR of both www.site-A.com/links.html & www.site-B.com/links.html is too low.

[Bio4ce]

Funny, I've had a similar experience. Launched a site back in February, received numerous backlinks from PR4-PR6 sites, and still a PR0 and no backlinks show up. On the other hand, I had a site that I launched back in March while the deepcrawler was out. Site instantly got crawled, has a PR5 and does quite well. Makes no sense to me.

I haven't even bothered looking them up in this new and improved (said sarcastically) index.

Oh well. Hopefully things settle down soon so I can try and figure out what's happened. Any attempt for me to do this now would be futile.

[extreme]

I don't think we should worry very much at all about missing links in the link: list currnetly.

That list seems to be completely separated from the PR calculations and the rest of the index...

It makes sense if its not even in the same database as the search data as the lookup method is completely different.