link.all at Google?

Is there something like that?

[Sinner_G]

As we all know, the link:site.com search at Google only gives the pages with a PR4 or above. Is there something like the link.all at FAST? If not, why not?

[gstewart]

I find the link.all search at AlltheWeb pretty indispensible - it would be good to have the ability at Google..

[Rumbas]

That's a good question Sinner_G.

Since Google relies so much on links and linkanalysis, there should an option to see all links going into a site imo.

Maybe our resident Googleguy can answer that?

[muesli]

i guess they won't do that in order not to allow reverse engineering of pagerank. in my opinion already the toolbar is endangering the PR concept by revealing too much information.

personally i would prefer if google kept PR secret (no display in toolbar and directory) and gave us (searchers, not webmasters) complete results for the "link" command.

[Hagstrom]

Hear, Hear!
I don't see the point in supplying us with a buggy link-tool.

I wonder if the link-tool is made buggy on purpose or if Google use the same tool for calculating PageRank. That would explain why so many sites loose their PR without knowing why :)

[Robert Charlton]

>>I wonder if the link-tool is made buggy on purpose or if Google use the same tool for calculating PageRank<<

I'm seeing a lot of sites that are in the Google index but show no backlinks when the link-tool is used... and they do have PageRank... so this interepretation doesn't seem to make sense.

I have noticed that over the past year Google has been cutting back on the number of back-links reported that they will display. First they were showing just half the links reported, and now only links with a certain PR or above (so I understand; I haven't analyzed this).

[2_much]

Robert Charlton, I've been thinking about this too. Part of Google's success is based on the tools they provided webmasters. Now they're big and they don't really need to support webmasters, so they're slowly cutting back. I wouldn't be surprised if soon they take all these tools away.

I've always wondered - what prevents them from showing inaccurate data?

Also, I have a sinking suspicion that the link: functions doesn't show 1/2 of the URL's - it just says that, but in reality, it's actually displaying all the links. I hypothesized this late one night but can't retrace my mental thoughts in order to provide proof.

[bcc1234]

I don't see the point in supplying us with a buggy link-tool.

That's not a bug, that's a feature ... he-he

[SlyOldDog]

I'm seeing a lot of sites that are in the Google index but show no backlinks when the link-tool is used... and they do have PageRank... so this interepretation doesn't seem to make sense.

Robert - could this be because a new page has been added to the index on an existing site since the last update?

Google will show "guessed" pagerank for it based on the known pagerank of index page, but won't show any backward links until the next update.

[Robert Charlton]

>>could this be because a new page has been added to the index on an existing site since the last update?<<

Could be... They're just pages I run across when assessing a search phrase and figuring out why sites rank. I really don't know.

2_much, etc - As for various Google conspiracy theories, I don't believe they're playing any games with the linking tool.

[loanuniverse]

I don't see the point in supplying us with a buggy link-tool.

How can anyone say something is bugged without really knowing how it works?

[2_much]

So here's the story: I have a new site that I linked to from 10 other high PR sites. This update, this site had a PR and displayed linkto - and it showed ALL the sites that linked to it from the cluster of sites. It's brand new and not linked to from anywhere else, so I doubt that it acquired a bunch of other links that are not displayed. Maybe it really is a conspiracy theory but makes me wonder.

[Hagstrom]

How can anyone say something is bugged without really knowing how it works?

According to Google's documentation [google.com], the link tool "shows you all the pages that point to that URL". There's no mention of any PR4 restricition. Not behaving according to documentation = buggy.

The link function will tell you that there's nnn back links but the actual number displayed is nnn/2 and sometimes (nnn/2 -1). E.g.: I have a small site with 27 pages in Google. If I ask Google about backlinks, it will show me 24 internal and 4 external links, but will write "Results 1 - 28 of about 56" in the header.

"28 = 56" = bug.

[TallTroll]

I think it may be a resource issue as well. Whether we like it or not, for many sites Google is the source of the majority of traffic, and if a webmaster is going to concentrate on just one engine, GG is likely to be it.

Imagine then the number of webmasters out there who spend time getting link: results for their sites. And then their competitors sites, maybe 30 of them, then checking down 2nd tier link: results (ie who links to the sites that link to my competitors?)

That game can go on for a while, and every one of those searches is, from Googles POV, non-productive. Its just webmasters/SEOs doing research, not adding value to the sites appearing in the results.

I would imagine that the link: search is fairly resource hungry as well. Not knowing exactly how Google stores link information makes it hard to judge, but I would imagine that every URL has a separate table, called from an index table. Thats a fairly large d/base, hence probably fairly CPU intensive.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google has taken a concious decision to restrict the utility of the link: function, because

1) General searchers don't use it, so neglible impact on Googles usability from that angle
2) Restricting the information available to SEOs, making it more difficult to get data to reverse engineer the algo
3) Reduction in server load, thus reducing overhead, and freeing up resources for "proper" searches

It's a no-brainer, really. I don't think they will kill it totally because that only encourages people to go to other places to find that information, which is inviting people to write tools to extract that info from them.

They are letting enough out to keep the masses quiet, without giving everything away

[ikbenhet1]

this link problem is so bad, that my web stats show referers from: link:www.somehotshotsite.nl. obviously webmasters want to know why i rank so high and who i link to.

maybe i should add this below my html's: [this site is
optimized by webmasterwold.com], it's just a matter of time before they have the same backlinks as me.

i'd love to see the pr meters and link tools disapear.

besides backlinks are not search results, so why sould google use their bandwith for this?

[Hagstrom]

I would imagine that the link: search is fairly resource hungry as well

I would imagine that when Google indexes a page linking to www.widget.com, Google will add "link:www.widget.com" as an extra keyword. In that way a search for "link:www.widget.com" will cost exactly the same as a search for "widget".
Of course I have no way of knowing this.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google has taken a concious decision to restrict the utility of the link:

That's silly (I'm not saying you're wrong - just that it's silly :)
Either they shold fix it or recall it.

i'd love to see the pr meters and link tools disapear.

Steady now, Uwbenthet1.
The link:-tool has other uses than Google page rank,

[WebRookie]

First they were showing just half the links reported, and now only links with a certain PR or above (so I understand; I haven't analyzed this).

Robert -- I've noticed this too, in particular, it seems that the highest PR sites (I found to link to) in backlinks show up, much fewer listed than before.