Sites SE Popularity

Comparing your quantity of links to others

[brotherhood of LAN]

I have been playing with an "SEO tool" that studies the amount of links your website has in 5 different SE's. I compared my site to a certain well known site beginning with W and ending in D :)

Here they are

Other Site

FAST Alta Vista Google Hotbot Northern Light Total 
9,600 1,313 1,780 900 3,429 17,022

My site

FAST Alta Vista Google Hotbot Northern Light Total 
63 0 1,150 -1 0 1,212

In terms of size, I can totally appreciate the difference in Google results. But look at my site in those other engines! I can't think of any clear cut reason why Google would be "A OK" with me and the rest shortchange the page count of my site.

If I am doing something wrong here, or if someone thinks my site is in error in some sort (profile), then give me the full wraith of your experience :)

Thanks in advance, I look forward to the solutions

P.S. The site I compared to was a forum ;) obviously this means all pages are content rich. A small majority of mine may be on the thin side, but im sure that cant account for the lack of exposure indicated above

Thanks....

Richard

[IanTurner]

If you're site has been actively promoted in the last couple of months and gained most of its links in that time, they may not yet be showing up in the other engines.

[brotherhood of LAN]

This is the sites 4th month,

around 10% of traffic comes from the original site based on a free address which was running for 8 months beforehand.

How long do I have to wait? Bear in mind I have never paid anything tobe submitted into any SE

[IanTurner]

The others I could say may not be updated for 4 months, but the fast figure really gets me. Fast usually shows much higher than Google and updates at about the same rate.

Maybe someone else has an idea.

[brotherhood of LAN]

that one interests me to - the fast one

was originally 220 from a spider the other month but lately that number has been whittling down towards 0

[IanTurner]

Could be onto something there, they could be reviewing their link pop algorithm.

[unknownsoldier]

have you looked at the actual pages in detail that google and the other engines are listing?

It could be that some of the sites that you are linked to are not indexed or have been dropped by the other search engines.

Have you tried any other link popularity tools?

[Brett_Tabke]

It's a se by se thing BOL:

FAST You really should be doing better here ( I can't explain that one)
Alta Break out your check book. They rarely crawl. You'll need to hand submit every page.
Google well ya...
Hotbot Ink. Be thankful if you have even one page in the db without paying.
Northern Light. rip.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Thanks Brett, I can understand that Im not listed in some departments purely because I have not paid anything.

I have also created a new site which is yet to be listed in ANY engines (submitted 3 weeks ago) and Im getting hassle of the guy I made it for!!!! I tried to explain that it takes time, like the other site in question (above) which is relatively young.

Does anyone have a realistic estimate for a newbie site to be listed in a majority of the SE's (roughly how long does it take)?

I'd be interested to know :)

[paynt]

If they pay up front to be added to all the directories and such, I tell folks that is 6 weeks (Overture aside) they'll see SOME action but not to hold their breath because 3-4 months isn't an unreasonable expectation. Seriously though - if they aren't willing to put a year into it then I don't think it's worth doing - strictly my opinion.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I agree paynt, a web presence should have a long term view just like any other aspect of marketing or business.....

The problem I have here is conveying this thought to the client (being an empath would help) because they think they should be found in "lycos" for some reason after 3 weeks from the submission to lycos

The client in question has already paid for a dud £250 site that isnt listed, has frames and basically doesnt do the job, so naturally they have cold feet.

Its hard to explain that the rest of the world has to catch up when you submit a site :)

[4eyes]

Probably a daft question, but did a hand check give the same results?

[brotherhood of LAN]

4eyes I dont understand the question

[brotherhood of LAN]

Further to looking at why the amount of FAST links dissapearing, it seems its sourcing some of my URL's without the www

i.e.
[site.com...]
[site.com...]

Anyone know if its possible both are being indexed and then penalised?

[bird]

Brother, I'd check those numbers manually. Go to the engines and use the advanced search features. It may take half an hour instead of a few minutes, but at least you'll see what you get and can do some sanity checks. Of course, the numbers will look quite different depending on if you want to count your own pages as well, or only external inbound links.

My suspicion is that there are very few sites that link to yours, or if there are more, then the engines have never heard about those. The google figure you're citing above primarily appears to count your own pages. I find I get the best estimation of linking sites at Google with the pattern "-site:www.example.com example.com". This will also return some that only mention your domain without actually linking to it, but at least it's not subject to PR filtering, and you're excluding your own (remove the minus sign for a counter check).

In comparison, the FAST numbers appear more realistic. If you believe (or know) that there really are many more sites linking to you, then you'll have to work with those a little more closely.