Sites linking in to my site

[modyourcar]

Hi all... I am new here so firts of all hi everyone. I wasn't sure where to post this question so I posted it in here.

My question is simple...

I run www.****.com.au and I know for a fact there are HEAPS of web sites out there that are indexed in google that link to my site.

Now.... when I run link:xxx.com.au in Google (or Alexa) I get none or one result.... what the?

It's concerning as I am trying to work on getting my Google page rank up from 3 to above 5 if possible and I know that inbound links are VERY important.

Any ideas?

Dan

[edited by: modyourcar at 4:33 am (utc) on June 22, 2004]

[ken_b]

Hi Dan;

First welcome to WW.

Second, Googlewon't show you all the links to your page, just those with a PR4 (maybe PR3) or above in general.

Try running the link search on Yahoo.com. You'll probably find more links doing that.

Thirdly, you might want to edit out your URL, folks like to keep things more generasl here, rather than related to a specific site.

Again, welcome to WW!

[modyourcar]

No problem, I have edited my post. OK so Google won't show lower page rank sites, ok. I am sure though that I am listed ona few 4 or 5 pagerank sites though.... wierd.

[Robert Charlton]

Hi modyourcar - Welcome to the forums.

ken_b is right on about the links that Google will show... and he's also right that you should edit your post to generalize your domain.

I took a look at the Yahoo backlink search for your domain, and note that Yahoo is requiring http in front of the domain, and that without "www" no backlinks are shown. I don't know whether this is the way you've set up your domain, or the way Yahoo searches backlinks.

The syntax I used on Yahoo for searching backlinks for your domain is...

link:http://www.yourdomain.com.au

I only looked at a few of the backlinks. Most were PageRank zero, and most didn't appear to be very good... things like linkdrops on forums. Hope that's not what you were trying to do here. ;)

I'd suggest you be a lot more discriminating about how you get backlinks, and that you perhaps get a Google Toolbar so you can at least see Toolbar PageRank. That said, it's good to learn to evaluate the quality of a site and not rely on either the Toolbar or on PageRank as your only ranking criteria.

I didn't look at your site, because we don't want to encourage people to drop links... but if you want to get good inbounds, you're going to need to have content worth linking to. Check out the following post for a good basic approach

Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone
[webmasterworld.com...]

Also check into the link building forum on WebmasterWorld for advice, and do a lot of reading on the forums.

About link drops, the WebmasterWorld Terms of Service aren't prominent. I forget whether they're presented to you when you register. Anyway, here's a link to them with a quote from several relevant items...

[webmasterworld.com...]

Self promotional URL drops and whisper campaigns are strictly forbidden within the forums and will be edited out.

We do not allow review my site posts. It is impossible to deduce which posts are honest requests and which are promotional.

PS... I see you've edited your domain. Sorry for the lecture, but I hope the post is helpful.

[goodroi]

When searching for backward links on Google or Yahoo make sure to try all combinations of your url. Sometimes you will receive different numbers for these 3 similar searches 1) link:http://www.yourdomain.com 2)link:www.yourdomain.com 3) link:yourdomain.com.

You can also search for "yourdomain.com" in quotes this can help disocver some pages that link or talk about your page but do not have enough importance for Yahoo or Google to display in you backward link search.

[MHes]

"Second, Googlewon't show you all the links to your page, just those with a PR4 (maybe PR3) or above in general. "

Not exactly. Its just a random sample of backlinks, some high pr sites don't show.... but they will be counted. The link test on google is worthless now.

[AprilS]

Unfortunately I have to agree - we have QUITE a few PR6 sites and a PR7 site pointing to us... but Google doesn't not show them as backlinks.

However, I've also noticed that we have not had a boost in PR since the PR6's linked to us as well as the PR7. I know a lot of people here think there is no connection - But I'm starting to wonder since Google's software doesn't see/show the backlinks... that it doesn't pass on the PR for those links. AND a couple of the PR 6 sites and the PR 7 site - we are the only site they are linking to from their main page.

[cabbie]

Be patient April.There is a delay on pr passing to some sites.google are getting sneaky.

[Marval]

more importantly - you forgot to mention how long the site has been up and how long the backlinks have been in place - it can take 3 or so months for Google to find links to a newer site and sometimes even longer to show the links as backlinks to you

[Robert Charlton]

modyourcar - There's a Google PageRank and backlink update happening right now. These were probably reflected in rankings that happened a week or so ago, but they're just now showing in Google serps.

I'm seeing a more thorough reporting of backlinks than I've seen in Google for some time, so you might want to give it a look again and let us know if there's an improvement.

[modyourcar]

I originally asked the question beause I know we have a number of PR4/PR5 sites linking in and they were not showing.

The PageRank update last month resulted in an increase in PR to PR4 for my site which I was happy with. A fixed some internal linking issued I had and it seems to have worked a treat.

Yes there are a lot of inbound links to my site through forums but that's because people talk about it and the products we have available, I can not help that. Word of mouth is the best form of marketing! It doesn't matter what PR you have, if someone referrs you by mouth the chances of those visits are high.