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Checking Backlinks - new method or old?

Using a + or a space makes a big difference.

         

lasko

9:13 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Bare with me on this but something I have realised that I didn't notice in the last 4 years of Google.

The following I now do

link:www.mysite.com

Results: 50 links

------

link:+ www.mysite.com

Results: 219 links

------

What is even more strange is if I do this

------

link: www.mysite.com

Results: 219 links

------

The last query has a space between the link: and the web site address.

219 links is the correct figure for my web site, Google returns 50 links for when searching the old way for checking backlinks, I believe all these have a PR4 or more. I also believe that this is done to help those find other sites when using the "check who links to this site" option. Google is just showing the best results out of all the links.

I strongly believe that Google is still counting all the links that are made even from PR1,2,3 etc.

I know this as my competitors have more then 50 PR4 links then my site but I have more links in total then them.

So whats to do with the new links?

Nothing just Google showing quality results instead of all the results.

The way forward?

Keep exchanging links to sites that are ranked in Google even if its a PR1,2,3 who knows that their site may become a PR5 and Google may not be interested in calculating PR4.

Oh and keep adding new content every month or week :-)

djgreg

9:33 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



When I do the Link: query on google it is
the other way round.
When searching for link: www.xyz.com
it gives 50 backlinks
when searching for
link:www.xyz.com it goves 266

266 is the correct number.

curious!?!?

Iguana

9:40 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I was first mislead into thinking that the (space) method did give more accurate results. Wish-fulfilment because it gave my main site a greater number of backlinks.

On further examination I don't think it works. On 3 of my other sites it gives a greatly reduced number of links and it also misses out my big PR links.

It does display an interesting set of links though - such as links added in the last week or two (some of which are PR4+)

coconutz

9:48 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The blue statistics bar [google.com] will tell you what you searched for:

link: www.yoursite.com
Searched the web for link: www.yoursite.com.

link:+ www.yoursite.com
Searched the web for link:+ www.yoursite.com.

link:www.yoursite.com
Searched for pages linking to www.yoursite.com.

djgreg

10:06 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



coconutz;

this would mean that on all pages returned when searching link: www.xyz.com exactly that term should appear. But in my case this is not true.

kaled

10:11 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Perhaps I'm missing something but as far as I can tell, searching for link: anything is worthless.

The official way to check backlinks with Google is to type the domain, press enter and wait for it to give you the option.

Unofficially, if you have a relatively small site, the following works reasonably well.

www.yourdomain.com -site:domain.com

You may experiment with adding http:// at the start.

You may try adding directories to narrow the search.

This is far from perfect but is a vast improvement on the official method. You may find, for instance, that graphic links are not detected (very strange) and you may discover that non-link occurences of your domain name are also listed.

This method also produces some interesting results for major sites. For instance, Yahoo returns about 200,000 results, the top few of which are Yahoo country domains.

Kaled.

PS
Whilst this method works reasonably well at the moment, it may not continue to do so.

Macro

10:33 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Perhaps I'm missing something but as far as I can tell, searching for link: anything is worthless

Exactly what I thought.

ciml

10:45 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



> worthless

I can't agree 100%. Reading things into data without understanding them is problematic, so for many people link: searching is worse than worthless. If you have a good idea of what the link: results mean though, it is a valuable tool.

link:www.example.com is Google's backlink search. For the other searches, just read them without the ":" and they should become clear.

Pricey

11:38 am on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Adding the space or the + only tells Google to search for links: and www.mydomain.com

The SERPS from this will not all be backlinks.

seofreak

12:04 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



exactly!

kaled

12:12 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Looks like I was partly wrong, the link: search does seem to work after a fashion now. It didn't seem to when I tried it a few days ago unless it included the Google-generated checksum value. Is this a policy change or have I been doing it wrong for the last few months?

Kaled.

HarryM

12:17 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I cannot see any backlinks for my site using the official Google method. I believe that's because it is not a PR4. However they show up more or less correctly in all-the-web.

So I thought I would give Khaled's method a try.

www.yourdomain.com -site:domain.com

Result was just 3 links, or 5 links if http:// is included.

It seems I still have to use alll-the-web.

Harry

Macro

12:48 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It seems I still have to use alll-the-web

I don't think alltheweb is very hot either.

Michaeldd

1:13 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I've tried all of the suggestions with varying results. Also I've noticed that if you type the plural...links: www.example.com the results are something else entirely.
Anyone else?

Pricey

1:43 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It seems I still have to use alll-the-web

ATW will always show more backlinks because it lists them all, rather than Google who only list backlinks with a PR>=4

ppg

2:17 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hmmm. I have a site shows 138 backlinks on google and 16 in atw.

Pricey

3:09 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



argh! My theory is flawed!