Would Google love this link?

Google not recognising my reciprocal links.

[duncanj]

A number of links I developed around 2 months ago did not show in the last update. Help from the groups targeted the way these sites were linking to my own as the problem. Not JS or CGI but bad HTML apparantly.

I have since managed to get a number of the links changed but the webmasters insist on having the links open in a new window. Would Google have a problem with this? I have included an example of how the link now looks.

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.mydomain.com">My Site Name</a>

Thanks guys. Hopefully they will get picked up in the next update!

[Sinner_G]

Target=_blank is standard html. so it should be no problem for googlebot.

[duncanj]

Thanks Sinner_G

They were linking to me as in the example below. Not sure why, but I guess this was what caused the problem.

<a [mydomain.com""mysitename'...] target="_blank" href="http://www.mydomain.com">My Site Name</>

[jdMorgan]

duncanj,

From all I have experienced, having the links to your site open in a new window won't affect you in
the least, except that the linking site will still be in an open browser window under the window
your site is displayed in. Since robots aren't browsers, they really don't care; They just follow
the link while disregarding any display-control attributes.

The original link format you quoted is so hopelessly messed-up, it's probable that the robot just
ignored it as invalid.

Jim

[Grumpus]

Target tags are no problem for google. Heck, I'm even getting some credit for "redirect" links from some directories I submitted to a while back. Now, which sites google actually finds and credits you with is a whole other game.

G.

[Sinner_G]

<a [mydomain.com""mysitename'...] target="_blank" href="http://www.mydomain.com">My Site Name</>

This is (or was) definitely the problem, I have never seen such a screwed up link.

[duncanj]

Thanks guys.

All your help and advice has finally put my mind at rest on this.

[muesli]

as i said in a different thread (what is a link? [webmasterworld.com]) there might be a difference between "what links the bot follows" and "what google considers being a link when calculating PR".

what if google counts the number of "<a " on a page (including the messed up one duncanj has posted) so every outbound link would carry less relevance?

i don't really believe this theory as it would probably mess up a closed system's total PR (that should always have an average of 1 for each page according to the theory*) but who knows..?

*if a link <a href=#> would be considered the other (real) links on the page would carry less PR thus making the closed system leak.

muesli