Answers.google.com and PageRank

do links from answers.google.com count?

[webdevsf]

I noticed some links we got from answers.google.com in response to a question, pointing to some informational pages on our site as a resource. The link is a direct link and the page that it links from on answers.google.com is a PR8!

Searching google, it looks like answers.google.com is indexed and searchable (ie, query=site:answers.google.com foobar)

Anyone know if this is going to help my PR?

Thx,
WDSF

[jeremy goodrich]

If it gets indexed then it should help your PageRank, because it is a part of the link matrix of the web :) However, who knows if Google wouldn't "hand modify" their own links...?

In a few months if it shows as a backlink, I would say, "it counts".

[keeper]

I usually check the robots.txt file to see if they are excluding the page your link is on. Not sure where yours is, but Answers looks fairly restrictive.

[Giacomo]

We already discussed that: [webmasterworld.com...]

[jeremy goodrich]

Ah, that makes more sense - why would Google give people the means to get such high PageRank links so quickly & easily?

Though, if they were selling those links, I could see them doing it :) lol.

[philipp]

Google Answers just recently started to allow the Googlebot inside the question threads to index everything. Before that, Googlebot via robots.txt was disallowed to spider anything but the question titles from the overview.

I suppose as soon as people start to misuse Google Answers for link spamming a) Google Answers PageRank will drop naturally b) Google Answers will be penalized by Google (uhm...), or c) Google Answers will disable linking functionality for comments (and possibly, questions as well -- and the Researchers themselves are unlikely to risk their status by spamming the board).

PageRank or not, Google Answers _will_ give a site quite some exposure, albeit at the moment probably largely by the "tech crowd".

[webdevsf]

I don't see how this answers the question. All the robots.txt file is saying is that you can't enter a query followed by lots of random phrases. The answers.google.com home page has lots of browsable links with tons of "next" links that should lead you to every single page on it.

They probably are doing something custom to block it from affecting pagerank.

[David_M]

It doesn't count.

I just checked a couple sites from January and February questions- no Answers.google.com in their backlinks.