Non-hyperlinked URL references, counted as backlinks?

[crobb305]

Scrolling through the inbound links reported in WMT I see numerous "links" that aren't hyperlinked on the referring page. Some are referenced incorrectly causing 404s. (example: a site references mine using www.example.com but doesn't hyperlink). Has Google started counting those as links?

[tedster]

The most definitive answer we have is "maybe". My own take on it is that such text-only URLs hgave some value, but it's not in the same territory as a hyperlink (no PageRank, for example.)

Also recognize that Webmaster Tools lists a lot of links that don't actually "count", even if they are hyperlinked. The list is pretty much there as an "FYI - here's what we found."

[Robert Charlton]

This discussion gives more background on why Google is doing the experimental crawling of unlinked URLs which is generating those 404s you're seeing....

Google Following URLs Without Hyperlinks
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4389424.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Regarding link credit from these, this comment from Google's John Mueller perhaps includes some wiggle room...

We primarily use these kinds of URLs for discovering new content.

The word "primarily" suggests possibilities beyond just discovery. I agree with Tedster that whatever value these text-only URLs may have, though, it's nowhere close to hyperlinks.

I also feel that if these text-only urls are regarded as social "citations" as some have theorized (myself from time to time included), they would be not only be less powerful than hyperlinks, but they would be nowhere like the citations discussed in Local circles. These local citations are structured listings in trusted local directories, and are widely assumed by local SEOs to influence Place Page rankings.

I feel that unlinked mentions that are not in structured directories would necessarily be subject to a great deal of skepticism by Google, and, if counted at all, would probably be "weighted" in much the same way that linked mentions are weighted... according to the inherited trusted and relevance "scores" of their source pages and to their prominence on those pages... and they might be treated as either a social "buzz" or as a semantic factor. I believe that it would take a lot of them on trusted pages to produce an effect.

There's a bit more discussion about unlinked mentions here...

Google Approves Directory Submission
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4157338.htm [webmasterworld.com]

And also here...

Link Building in Theory - A Look at Unlinked Citations
Does a Citation Have to be a Link?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/4237649.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes, they are treated the same as backlinks. In support of my position I'd like to offer the following...

- Drop down navigation often uses an onchange event with options as urls. These are not hyperlinked.
- non-webmasters may mention a site without bothering to hyperlink it.
- Google has advanced their detection of copyright terms and names to the point these may be considered equal to links. Note: this would occur when Google is extremely certain of the copyright holder or persons real identity.
- Some sites break hyperlinks down into url strings but the intent is the same as a link.

I believe that Google wants to know what's being talked about and, though they did at one point, they no longer rely on hypertext markup as the only method of identifying article topic and related content.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Further support - [groups.google.com...]

John MU says...

We've started picking up text that looks like URLs on HTML pages and seeing if they lead to new content.

[crobb305]

non-webmasters may mention a site without bothering to hyperlink it.

I've definitely encountered this over the past 11 years. On at least two different occasions, my content/url was cited/referenced by sources whose "policy" dictated that references were not to be hyperlinked (I was told this when I contacted them about it). It was probably their way of hoarding PageRank before "nofollow" came along. So, to this day, my url sits as an unlinked "reference" on some websites that are highly trusted by Google. I'd like to think it is getting counted as a link.

Robert, thank you for noting the previous discussions about this topic. I just read through some of the information, and in particular the thread "Does a Citation Have to be a Link?" All good information. I think it also comes down to the format of the reference that Googlebot encounters. If Googlebot encounters the phrase "blue widgets" in a review, that may be too ambiguous to associate it with a website. On the otherhand, if it encounters www.bluewidgets.com, it may be a different story. In my case (citations of my website), my site has been deliberately referenced in www format, but not hyperlinked. In one case on a PR6 page (years ago).

[lucy24]

If it's been going on for 11+ years, isn't it about time they learn to tell the difference between genuine URLs that might lead to a page, and obviously truncated or otherwise mangled references that will lead only to garbage cluttering up the wmt error list?