Shows over 400 Backlinks in Google, but no link to them

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Shows over 400 Backlinks in Google, but no link to them

How does this person do this?

Jimmie

6:28 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

Ran into a site that has over 400 backlinks in google (completely unrelated), and when you go to any of the 400 backlinks, there is no link to this site. Checked the source code, no link! How does this person do this? I can't figure out how it's showing backlinks when it "appears" there are none? Redirect somewhere?

I got tired of trying to click on all the links to see how they even remotely went to the site.

startup

6:50 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

They using the source code from the Cached version of the linking pages. View/Source/Search/ now type in the link you are looking for.

Jimmie

6:56 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

I'll have to check that out startup....didn't look at that...but seriously, now that I think about that....on over 400 sites that would be true?

Jimmie

6:58 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

and wait a minute...I did check the source as you suggested..I'm half asleep here, but this is really boggling my mind...I know I'll lay in bed and try to figure out "how he do dat?"

Powdork

7:20 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've often wondered if an seo could lurk here, get an early warning of the crawl, use a program to add invisible links to all his sites, and then remove them after the crawl. The only downside would be someone like you reporting it.

yankee

7:23 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

They are likely cloaking (google gets the source with the links, everyone else gets the source without the links). Cloaking is against Google TOS.

Jimmie

7:42 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

400 sites cloaking for this guy? Somebody has to let me sticky them to check this out...it is wild!

Jimmie

8:03 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

I believe this guy does hosting services and other stuff through other sites of his, so he may be using this position to pull this off. Any thoughts?

roundabout

8:24 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

Sticky me the URL ... you got me curious

Shakil

9:06 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

They are likely cloaking (google gets the source with the links, everyone else gets the source without the links). Cloaking is against Google TOS.
==================================================

thats what my 2 pence is on.

Shak

Brett_Tabke

11:15 am on Feb 12, 2003 (gmt 0)

My guess, is that the backlinks showing are on redirects. Any redirected links (through cgi's) on the page?

Jimmie

2:02 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

nope, brett....wouldn't those redirect links be on the page redirecting to this site...and I don't know where it is...I took one page with the least amount of links and clicked on every link and never got to this site...so I have no idea how it's happening...but the weird thing is all the pages are pretty similar in topic (completely unrelated to the topic of site in question, also)...hypothetical: the site is about food and all the backlinks are about carburetors...not that that matters, it's just curious they are all from same topic

Jimmie

2:12 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

Interesting, the cached snapshot of the page is not the same site at all...and interestingly it is related to the same topic all the backlinks are related to....getting somewhere now in figuring this out...but I know nothing about cloaking or redirects or yada yada..so I don't even know what you call what this site is doing...obviously serving google something different than the site itself, and what is shown to google has links to it, hence backlinks to this site....

Jimmie

2:48 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

ok, now this really confuses me...on the cached version (hypothetical site)is this:

This is G o o g l e's cache of [widgets.com...]
G o o g l e's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the web.
The page may have changed since that time. Click here for the current page without highlighting.
To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url: [google.com...]

Notice google says it's a cache version of one site, and to link to it or bookmark it, google gives the actual name of the site in question...

you all are probably laughing at me because you've probably all seen and discussed such sites before, but to me it's mind boggling how google doesn't even see it gives out too different sites info in the cache

Marcia

2:51 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

I saw multiple dozens of links to some site that were all hidden in 0% frames. Also, I've seen hidden links in <noframes> of database driven template type sites in a competitive industry. The owners of the sites haven't got the foggiest idea it's being done.

AussieMike

3:50 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

You say he provides hosting services also? Sounds like the clever guy might have all his hosting clients cloaking for him without them knowing. htaccess files are likely to be invisible to his hosting clients anyway.

If G finds out, the cloaking sites get pulled, not his.

Could be?

Jimmie

5:38 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

what a drag that would be for the sites unknowingly cloaking...if they got pulled

NickCoons

9:09 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

Jimmie,

Can you sticky me the URL as well?

vitaplease

10:19 am on Feb 13, 2003 (gmt 0)

I saw multiple dozens of links to some site that were all hidden in 0% frames. Also, I've seen hidden links in <noframes> of database driven template type sites in a competitive industry. The owners of the sites haven't got the foggiest idea it's being done

yes, all the clients of certain webdesigners, all interlinking to each other without knowing it, hidden in a redirected frame, .../bottom.html type of stuff.