Links........the do's and don'ts?

[Munster]

I have a question regarding links and the link: query.

when I check my competitors backward links using the link:www.my-competitor.co.uk it returns over 250 results including many of their own pages. when I do the same query for my own site it returns only 3 results and none of our own pages are included.

Should I be using a particular type of text link or avoiding a particular type?

I believe that this is the root problem responsible for the poor performance of my site in the search engines. I know I have much more than 3 links pointing to my site so why does G not recognise them with the link: query

Any help would be great

Cheers

Munst

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Munst what is your PR versus your competitor's? As I understand it the Google link function does not return links below PR4.

[Munster]

My PR is 4 and my competitors is 6, but I have many links to my site from pages well above PR4, including a text link on the home page of a well known Aussie directory which does not appear in the link: query.

Also I have noticed that if I use the link:www.hhhhh.com we get 3 results but if i add a space and do link: www.hhhhh.com we get many more results! Whats all that about?

Many of the internal links we use would be using link class=footer does that make a difference?

[uncle_bob]

If you leave a space between link: and your site name, I think google treats them as two seperate search terms, because I get the same results with a space, as when I search for

www.example.com link:

whereas when there is no space, a smaller number of results is returned.

[MHes]

Munster

If your home page is pr4, then your internal pages are probably pr3, so they won't show.
Get your internal pr higher and they will then show as back links, however, the pr 3 internal links will be doing some good, so don't worry!

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Uncle Bob is right. If you leave a space Google will display results that contain the word link and also your domain name.

My PR is 4 and my competitors is 6, but I have many links to my site from pages well above PR4, including a text link on the home page of a well known Aussie directory which does not appear in the link: query.

I think that you will find that if you use the correct syntax (no space) there are no sites below PR4 listed.

[Munster]

That is true BeeDeeDubbleU but the trouble is that none of the PR4+ sites are being listed either...

[atlrus]

when were those pr4+ links placed?
You know google updates the links once a month, so if they were recent, they will show next time google updates the backward links.

[Munster]

These links have been around for months..

[NLightN]

Munst,
I've noticed a shift in backlinks from sites that are only showing if they are relevant to my site content. I have many links from both on topic and off topic sites, but it appears that only those that have relevance to my site are showing, with a small handful of exceptions - all PR4+.

I have also seen it take up to three months for certain back linking sites to show in G's update. One in particular is a back link with a PR6 that is 100% on topic, has been up for 8 weeks pointing to my index page, and is still not showing in G's back links.

I would recommend continuing to get more on topic back links while between updates, more links back to your site never hurts ;-)