Backlinks and PR

Is PR calculated from backlinks only? How long to become a backlink?

[NickH]

I have about 30 links to my site. I can find most of them in Google, on the originating sites. However, when I check my site's backward links, only two are displayed.

1) The two backlinks that are displayed were added in December. About 15 more links were added in January. Can I expect these to show as backlinks after the next dance?

2) For a link to contribute to PR, must it display in Google as a backlink? (And not merely be an inbound link.)

[warumauchnicht]

Hi Nick!

link:www.yoursite.com only displays pages which link to your site and have PR 4 or more.

[MeditationMan]

...and even if the links are less than PR4, they still count towards your page's PR.

[Mohamed_E]

Let me add that the links with PR less than 4 do not show but do count (except for those with a PR of zero, which includes most or all DMOZ clones). You can see more of your links (including many that do not show in Google) by using alltheweb's link: command.

[bsand715]

Hope this is not off topic.

In trying to understand the PR distrubution through out the entire site.I have seen some sites with a pr of 8 ,yet a few pages (not new pages the best I could tell)would be gray or 0.

On one site I was studying it had 1 page with only 8 links scattered toward the bottom, no descriptions "NOTHING ELSE" no metas except for title with the name of "none" PR5. another page with just logo image and small home link with PR of 3.

How can this be?

These are not big name sites.

I tried to find the name of the webmaster with the blank 5 and 3pr ranked pages to hire. No luck yet. :)

[NickH]

Sorry, I should have added that all but one or two of the pages that link to my site have PR >= 4.

My question is really about whether only those inbound links that Google lists as backlinks (link:www.yoursite.com) count toward PR. It seems that inbound links can be listed by Google (on the donor page) within days, but take at least a month to be counted as backlinks.

The second question, then, is can I expect to see inbound links added in January finally show as backlinks after the next dance?

[Powdork]

I tried to find the name of the webmaster with the blank 5 and 3pr ranked pages to hire. No luck yet.

That was me and I am for hire. I can get you all the blank pr 3 pages you like. ;)
Actually PageRank and content are two completely separate entities. PR is merely a measure of the value of links pointed at a particular page from within or outside a domain. It stands alone from what is actually on the page (content).

[coconutz]

My question is really about whether only those inbound links that Google lists as backlinks (link:www.yoursite.com) count toward PR.

I would think that all of your backlinks (whether they are listed or not) contribute to your page rank. Google usually only displays around half of the results, but it's anyone's guess as to why. A related discussion:

How does Google rank backlinks
[webmasterworld.com]

It seems that inbound links can be listed by Google (on the donor page) within days, but take at least a month to be counted as backlinks.

The inbound links being listed within days may be due to freshbot picking up the changes on those pages. Page rank is usually only recalculated once a month during the regular update.

The second question, then, is can I expect to see inbound links added in January finally show as backlinks after the next dance?

The new links added in January may have been found during the regular crawl earlier this month. Any of the new links that were picked up during this crawl should show up during the next update sometime around the end of the month.