Can Google back links be considered as the most themed links?

[aramyus]

We all know that Google lists only a very small percentage of backlinks when we search for: link:www.mysite.com

Is the list totally random or can we get an indication of what links Google considers the most relevant/important/themed for a page ?

[GULLIVER]

I don't think backlinks showing up in Google are the most themed links to your site. may be they are the most important for google.

[miejsca]

afaik those are not highest pr links -- I don't know the Google's criteria, yet the list is quite steady.

[kuyaedz]

Anyone else find that link:mydomain.tld seems to bring back very limited results? I know from other link trackers that I have far more than Google ever returns.

[aramyus]

kuyaedz

Just pick up 10 sites you know and compare the back links reported by google, yahoo (the best in my opinion https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites) and msn

You will see that google does never report all the links they know. This is intentional, I think they explained they do not want their algorythms to be reverse engineered

It seems the links reported by google are rather 'good links', but apparently nobody knows for sure

I've read many times that yahoo lists links according to the importance they have for yahoo (so what yahoo considers as to be the best links are listed first)

My intention is to try to boost some back links by providing a few links to them.

For example, I can write a few comments in blogs, posts in forums, or mention the back link in articles.

I have read an author explaining that doing so gives more authority to his back links, and hence improves his ranking. To be honest, I have seen that only once or twice... but there seem to be much logic. It should work beautifully because you take advantage of the reputation of a 'big boy' and you force the page to be re-indexed and brought to the attention of google several times.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Matt Cutts has stated many times that google show a 'selection' of backlinks.

[evera]

I have the same problem, google shows only a few links and yahoo and msn a lot. But I think google know all links but shows only a few, because they gave me a PR update eventhough the shown backlinks are fewer.
I dont know why they are hiding that, but as long as they calculate my PR correctly I dont mind :)

[aramyus]

Since my earlier posts, I read an interesting comment:

- Intentionally, Google does not provide any results that might help SEO. This is to reduce spam.
- The only reliable data provided by Google is the ranking in SE

Based on that, I would conclude that the subset of backlinks provided by Google should be considered as a semi-random selection, and for sure should not be used for SEO

The other comment gave me an idea, but I have not yet experimented it.

To find the 'quality/trust rank' of a page that you are considering for a link, you search in google for a keyword in the <title> tag. If the page is listed high, it has a good trust rank.

It should not be difficult to automate.

[markhanrry]

for me google shows 32 links while msn and yahoo shows 540 +

[infonote]

Use yahoo for checking backlinks

[Old Welsh Guy]

Like I said, Google shows a selection of links. If a page has been cahced, and the cache contains your backlink, then your link is being included in the Ranking algo.Aramyus, if your going to quote stuff, it would help the discussion if you cited the source of the content :)

[aramyus]

Like I said, Google shows a selection of links. If a page has been cahced, and the cache contains your backlink, then your link is being included in the Ranking algo.Aramyus, if your going to quote stuff, it would help the discussion if you cited the source of the content :)

Sorry, I do not have any source but I've read it a couple of times recently on blogs. Google is very parcimonious in communicating about their algorythms, so chances are high that these affirmations do not come from them. Sure, they are suspicious but they make a lot of sense. :-)

You said that all back links reported by Google are cached. However many cached back links are not reported by google. So the back links reported by Google are only a subset of cached backlinks. After what I have read recently, I doubt there is much logic in the selection

By the way, what are the criteria for google to cache or not a page? I have noticed that cached pages in general are 'rather good quality' pages. In general, I refuse a link exchange with a page non cached but I am not sure there is much rational.

[Old Welsh Guy]

You said that all back links reported by Google are cached.
No I didn't ;) I said if a page carrying your link is cached then you can be certain that it is being counted. many pages in google are not showing a cache, even though they appear in the serps.

[DarkAge]

they might not show all the links, but their "total" number seems exact.

PS how do you search for backlinks in MSN/Yahoo ?

[MattUK]

I'm fairly sure the links shown by Google are pretty random, I've never noticed a theme of them being of the same niche or carrying a particular PR range.

[sarathy]

You will see that google does never report all the links they know. This is intentional, I think they explained they do not want their algorythms to be reverse engineered


That is a false statement from google, Yahoo and msn gives most of the backlinks, If google thinks their system to be reverse engineered, just because of showing backlinks perfectly, Does it mean their whole algorithm runs only on Inbound link factor?.,
They claim there are over 100 Factors determining a sites ranking .

If its true, Does it mean, yahoo and msn does not care about getting reverse engineered?

[Old Welsh Guy]

I have a 7 year old daughter who can reverse engineer the MSN algo ;)

FACT: Google disabled their link: command because of link mongering and the way people were tracking links of competitors and skewing the SERP's. Whether you believe it or believe it not is your personal choice, but that is what their spokesmen have said at SES conferences. Why do you say That is a false statement from google ?

[minstrel]

Google first rendered the link: query pretty much useless. Now they seem to be doing the same to other queries of interest to webmasters only, like the site: query.

The link: query was primarily of interest only in buying and selling domains and in buying and selling links, neither of which Google has any interest in encouraging. For the same reasons, toolbar PageRank has ceased to be useful to anyone but the ill-informed.

Face it: Google is not in the business of helping webmasters to make their job more difficult... especially since their own engineers have been doing such a fine job of that without any help from webmasters, notably since Big Daddy. :rolleyes:

[Old Welsh Guy]

They now have video toys to play with as well!

[TangoUK]

I've also read somewhere that Yahoo shows backlinks in order of importance. But I haven't see any consistent evidence to support this theory.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Not that I know of. BUT ;) don't forget that yahoo bought alltheweb and altavista, as well as a couple of others. :D

[Ballz]

google does not list any of my backlinks.. its been over 6 months now... tsk tsk

[Old Welsh Guy]

Furion, READ THE THREAD ;)

[minstrel]

Furion, READ THE THREAD
If DP is going to make that a requirement for posting replies to threads, a lot of members are never going to get a chance to post. :D

[banless]

I will only say this, if you want google to show your backlinks then you need to chose them more wisely. Just because yahoo and msn show x amount of backlinks this means nothing to google, there system is totally different and therefore you need to use a certain stragey in order to make that happen.

[minstrel]

Strategy has little to do with it, banless. Google has shown only a small and seemingly random sample of links with their link: query for a long time now. This is intentional and there is no indication that it will change in the future. To put it bluntly, Google does not particularly want to encourage webmasters' interest in backlinks.

[banless]

There is a strategy that needs to be used. However if I told you what that was, one you would not believe me, and two all google would do is turn around and change it. If I chose to do so I could get as many google backlinks as I want and have done so with my directory as well some of my other sites. And could do the same for any client if they paid the right amount of money.

[minstrel]

You're missing the point, banless. It's not that Google doesn't KNOW about your backlinks. It's that they are not going to REPORT to you how many they know about.

[banless]

They will report the links, you just have to make them do so, the trick is getting them to do it, once you learn how to do that you will also learn the secret to getting page rank.

[minstrel]

They will report the links, you just have to make them do so, the trick is getting them to do it, once you learn how to do that you will also learn the secret to getting page rank.
Oh, pullease... :rolleyes:

There's no big mystery about how to get PageRank. And there's no big mystery about the limitations in the link: query. This is old news.

[banless]

Oh, pullease... :rolleyes:

There's no big mystery about how to get PageRank. And there's no big mystery about the limitations in the link: query. This is old news.

If what you saying is true then why is everyone trying to figure out how to get more google backlinks to show up. Seems strange how one guy stated that google still has not shown any google backlinks for his site in 6 months. but yahoo and msn seem to show some.

It is funny how all the guys with the most post think they have all of the right anwers. No offence. Sometimes the answer is right in front of your face but your eyes just do not want to see it.

[Old Welsh Guy]

They will report the links, you just have to make them do so, the trick is getting them to do it, once you learn how to do that you will also learn the secret to getting page rank.

What an absolute load of twaddle. There IS no secret to getting page rank. The patent and technology for page rank is public bloody knowledge at the USPO :rolleyes: Why do some people feel the need to make posts that make them a 'special guru' Pay me the money and I will show you LOL. :D

Is it because of your 'special knowledge' that Google is showing just above half the backlinks to your own site that Yahoo is?

Matt Cutts said clearly that Google shows a selection of backlinks and no longer shows all the links. When pushed he DID say that they show a selection of 'relevant' links. Now I was stood right in front of the guy when he said that, but you just go on and post what you want to!

I just think that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Ok so you have a few deep links skewing the figures a little, but Google is NOT showing all the links that Yahoo have to your site. You CAN influence which links are shown, but you can NOT get Google to show all your links, BECAUSE THEY DON'T ;)

[Phynder]

There is a strategy that needs to be used. However if I told you what that was, one you would not believe me, and two all google would do is turn around and change it. If I chose to do so I could get as many google backlinks as I want and have done so with my directory as well some of my other sites. And could do the same for any client if they paid the right amount of money.

Okay - put up or shut up. How much $$$ does your client need to pay you for this "service"?

[Old Welsh Guy]

There MIGHT be some confusion here as to what the question is. WE are talking about backlinks displayed, while banless is talking about links! Links, and links reported by Google are different things entirely.

[banless]

What an absolute load of twaddle. There IS no secret to getting page rank. The patent and technology for page rank is public bloody knowledge at the USPO :rolleyes: Why do some people feel the need to make posts that make them a 'special guru' Pay me the money and I will show you LOL. :D

Is it because of your 'special knowledge' that Google is showing just above half the backlinks to your own site that Yahoo is?

Matt Cutts said clearly that Google shows a selection of backlinks and no longer shows all the links. When pushed he DID say that they show a selection of 'relevant' links. Now I was stood right in front of the guy when he said that, but you just go on and post what you want to!

I just think that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Ok so you have a few deep links skewing the figures a little, but Google is NOT showing all the links that Yahoo have to your site. You CAN influence which links are shown, but you can NOT get Google to show all your links, BECAUSE THEY DON'T ;)

Forget what yahoo and msn are doing, those engines have nothing to do with google backlinks which I believe that is what this thread is about. I have never said that I was some form of guru, but what I know I know for a fact. And would be willing to challenge anyone on this forum to a google backlink contest. But just like when I made the challenge for a page rank contest no one steped to the plate.

I can back up everything I say regarding this matter and not afraid to eat my words if I was to lose.

Phynder I would be glad to give you a price if I thought you were serious about having me work for you, but I dought that is the case.

I'm not trying to agrue with you guys, all I am saying is that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to google backlinks.

And no offence to matt cutts, but do you really expect me to believe everything that comes out of his month just because he works for google.

As far as page rank goes I could give dozens of examples on sites that have links on high pr sites but don't have squat to show for it on there own page rank and the links do not even have a no follow on them or anything like that.

But back on topic. If anyone wants to challenge me in a google backlink contest then step to the plate and I will show you how to get google to show your links, other than that I am not just going sit here and tell everyone how it done.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Banless, as you say, you are not trying to argue, nor am I. Debate yes, for sure. so how can you say 'forget yahoo and MSn' ? A backlinks is a backlink, what your arguing is simply not possible to control the evaluation of. Google does not show all the known links, like I said, it IS possible to control which links are shown, but it is NOT possible to get google to show all the links it knows about.

I think we all know that there is more than meets the eye with regard backlinks on Google (at least those that do any sort of testing anyhow).

I doubt you will get anyone entering into your backlinks contest though, why not post a set of rules however, you never know :)

other than that I am not just going sit here and tell everyone how it done.It is a good job that not everyone on DP thought like that because if they did, then this place would not be the resource it is!

Sp there you go then. Lay out the clear rules for this challenge. Lay out how you will measure success and failure in google. You never know, someone might take you up on it.

[banless]

Banless, as you say, you are not trying to argue, nor am I. Debate yes, for sure. so how can you say 'forget yahoo and MSn' ? A backlinks is a backlink, what your arguing is simply not possible to control the evaluation of. Google does not show all the known links, like I said, it IS possible to control which links are shown, but it is NOT possible to get google to show all the links it knows about.

I think we all know that there is more than meets the eye with regard backlinks on Google (at least those that do any sort of testing anyhow).

I doubt you will get anyone entering into your backlinks contest though, why not post a set of rules however, you never know :)

It is a good job that not everyone on DP thought like that because if they did, then this place would not be the resource it is!

Sp there you go then. Lay out the clear rules for this challenge. Lay out how you will measure success and failure in google. You never know, someone might take you up on it.

I like your style OWG, and I agree that no one could get every single link to show up that is just not possible, yet if one is looking for google backlinks then like I said there is a way to do it.

Give me some time and I will post the google backlink rules for a possible contest, and look forward to seeing who wants to join.

[minstrel]

Unadulterated used dishwashing fluid... :rolleyes:

Forget contests and forget paying any money to anyone. As OWG said, the "secret" to PageRank is available to anyone able to read and the reality that Google only displays a selection of the backlinks it know about has been clearly stated numerous times.

There is no mystery. There is no secret. There is, apparently, an alternate reality that some self-styled Google experts dwell in, but that's pretty much it.

[Phynder]

Phynder I would be glad to give you a price if I thought you were serious about having me work for you, but I dought that is the case.

Why do you "dought" me? Do you have a service or not?

[MattUK]

There is no mystery. There is no secret. There is, apparently, an alternate reality that some self-styled Google experts dwell in, but that's pretty much it.
Exactly, it's the same with Pagerank. All of this information is in the public domain, but people still insist on coming up with 'theories' as to why things are more complicated than they really are.

Google only show a 'selection' of backlinks, but you can be damn sure that they 'know' about all of them - at least those that are on pages that have been indexed.

[aramyus]

I've also read somewhere that Yahoo shows backlinks in order of importance. But I haven't see any consistent evidence to support this theory.

I have read that a couple of times too

Back to the initial question, we pretty much all agree that back links reported by Google are suspicious and probably a random selection (even if obviously, google know all of them).

But what criteria do you use to measure the value of a link ?

Of course, we have the well known criteria:

Link page is indexed
Link page has a <title> compatible with the anchor text
Link page has relevant back links (prererably .edu or .gov sites)
Back links to the link page have the right anchor text
Link page does not have too many links
...

Today, it seems that a few excellent quality back links are worth more that hundreds of poor quality links


The best criteria I can think of to appreciate the quality of a link is the following:

Search google for a keyword of interest
Look in the results if the page is listed in the top 100 or so results
If so, the link page is very relevant for this keyword

I've tried to do that a couple of times, but the link pages were never in the top 100 results :-(

Does anyone have a better solution ?

[Old Welsh Guy]

backlink building has changed greatly of late. Ther is now and in the future will be a lot more weight on relevance.

[minstrel]

There is now and in the future will be a lot more weight on relevance.
Exactly. And that is the key to "good" and 'bad" links. Not whether they are reciprocal or one way or triangulated. Not whether they come from .edu sites or .info sites or any other type of site. Not whether they are .asp or .php or .html pages...

Relevance to the theme of the page.

[MattUK]

Spot on, it's actually quite worrying the number of people claiming to be SEO's that claim that Pagerank is derived from something other than the PR of linking pages and that it's possible to manipulate which backlinks Google show etc etc.

[minstrel]

No doubt it's scaring the hell out of all those text link brokers and article brokers too who are still doing their best to convince people that buying links and posting duplicate content is the way to boost SE rankings.

[MattUK]

LOL, Can't complain though really, it just makes things easier for the rest of us. ;)

[rosiee007]

I dont think Google backlinks can be considered the most themed links for any site. I'd like to give an example from my cooking site (http://www.cook-it-all.com).

I have not started any links campaign for this website nor done many directory submissions for the website. I am promoting it in the sig below, and now Google shows many links to the site from DP, which are not themed at all.

Have a look at link:www.cook-it-all.com (http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Awww%2Ecook%2Dit%2Dall%2Ecom)

[Old Welsh Guy]

Riosiee, I think you have misunderstood what is being said. We are not saying that google displays the most themed links, we are saying that themed links are better.

The other thing to consider is that MAYBE ;) Google IS showing what it considers to be a selection of the most relevent links, but your link building activity has dragged you into the wrong cluster!

What was it that was posted earlier 'there is more to link building than meets the eye' :)

[aramyus]

backlink building has changed greatly of late. Ther is now and in the future will be a lot more weight on relevance.

That's the conclusion so far. But How do you measure the relevance of a link (or trust rank or whatever we call it)

Page rank is certainly not a good measure.

[MattUK]

That's the conclusion so far. But How do you measure the relevance of a link (or trust rank or whatever we call it)
I generally look at the wider topic. For most sites it's not difficult to see what it's about. Digital Point is obviously SEO/Online Marketing themed, of course there are narrower and wider topics on certain pages that may increase or decrease the relevance of the link.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Relevance and trustrank are different things. To appreciate them you have to step back!

Trust rank is a system that shores up the original back rub algorithm. Links are STILL a good way to work out how important a site is, PROVIDING, you can work out how important the sites are in the beginning. I have written an article about trust rank here http://www.umbrella-consultancy.co.uk/art1-trustrank.htm

So if the BBC sports site, link to my rugby site, and I link to your football site, then there is a definite sports theme going on there right? BUT, and this is the thing here another football site might link to yours, but they have hardly any trusted links pointing to them, so even though they are more closely relevent, their link will not carry as much weight as mine!

Back further, Google use a base 5 sliding scale logarithmic algorithm. Put simply this allows them to raise of lower ANY element in the algorithm by the power of 5 (as in original value X5 X5 x5 x5 x5) so an original value on an element of say 10, could be boosted anywhere from 10 to 30,000 do you see now just how flexible the algorithm can be? So my link to you might get a boost from my trustrank.

Imagine this scenario. I link to your site, ordinary link on topic but nothing special about my link. Then something happens and the BBC link to the same page on my site that links to you WALLOP up goes the value of that link because Google knows it can trust the BBC, so it can trust me. Now if the link to my site comes from bbc.co.uk/rugby/wales.etc then that is even more themed and i might also get a theming boost as the source is trusted.

Relevance is odd it can include things like clustering, it can include things like semantics.

a page called Tiger does it again, could be relevant to tigers with stripes, or Golf couldn't it. So how do YOU work out what it is about?

The answer is simple isn't it, you can't! You need more information before you can, so WHAT information do you need? When you start to think like this, you are well on your way to building an understanding of SEO

[aramyus]

Relevance and trustrank are different things. To appreciate them you have to step back!


Thanks

I did not know the difference between the 2 concepts. Let us call that collectively the power of a link.

Now let us extrapolate your example

I have a football page and you have linked to me from your rugby page using anchor text: 'pain reliever' because you pointed out a new pain reliever ointment explained briefly in my football page, so almost totally irrelevant with the sport. Later on, you get a link from bbc.co.uk/rugby/wales.etc

Does the link 'pain reliever' get boosted too for the search term: football ?. If so, it would imply that the linking power of a page depends primarily of the trusted backlinks it receives (wiki, .edu. bcc etc...) and not much of link relevance

Overall, I'd be looking for a way to quantify this.

Said differently: is it better to have an irrelevant link from a trusted page or a relevant link from a very relevant but not trusted page ?

[Old Welsh Guy]

great Questions. I know I have written this up in an article someplace, but my network is down so I can't be bothered to look for it

This is a GREAT point to understand how semantics work, thanks for raising it, so here goes.

Pain killer. If the link from my rugby site is on a page dealing with rugby injuries, first aid, pain relief etc, and the link goes to your page dealing with pain relief in sports injuries, then they are going to be seen as highly semantically linked as they are dealing with sports injuries as a whole, and both sites are associated sports, so they score well on multiple levels of semantic relevance, then that link will carry great link benefit (this is the phrase I have always used). Now a link from the same page on my site, to your home page, will likely not carry as much weight, because it is ONLY semantically linked via sport words on one level of semantic relevance. (hope I have explained that well enough)

Again step back and look at the elements of a link. Google state that they have over 100 elements (I read recently in a transcript of an interview that Larry Page said it is now over 150) they have lots :D of elements to their algorithm, and many people count links as one. links are NOT 1 element, they are a few of the elements that are affected by:~

position of link on anchor page
size of text
Surrounding text and links on anchor page
theme of anchor page and site
content of anchor page
anchor text in link
content of target page
PR value of anchor page
Number and destination of links on anchor page
and now we have Trust rank creeping into the equation that can alter all the above in the blink of an eye.

(I have probably missed some other elements but I am typing this off the cuff and have a busy day so don't have time to read what I have written ;) )

SO to answer your question
is it better to have an irrelevant link from a trusted page or a relevant link from a very relevant but not trusted page ?
I will say what I have ALWAYS said when it comes to link building. For link building to work best, and to future proof your links, you should ALWAYS (and this is amazingly simple but some ignore it) link TO and FROM the most relevant pages on sites!

When the web started, academics posted papers, and on those papers they cited OTHER papers. Within these citations that referred to other research that re-enforced the current paper were often links, and these links would go along the lines of 'doctor x stated in his recent paper called Search Engine Dat retrieval in the area covering <latent semantic indexing> that........ .

The words within the parenthesis would be the anchor text used to describe what the user would encounter if they click the link, and chances are that the link would go DIRECTLY to the page that dealt with this information, RELEVANT INFORMATION, relevant to BOTH anchor AND target pages. Now that was at the birth of the web, and now all these years later, some people STILL have not grasped the absolute basics of linking TO and FROM the most relevant pages :)

Are we talking currently or long term 'what is best'? Currently the web is a mess, and Google have some high level technology on the sidelines ready to wipe out a LOT of current success through link mongering. Think about it in simplistic terms, because SEO is BASIC SIMPLE stuff that involves interacting with complex technology, but the basics are STILL the core to success.

why would a link on a page full of links, on a site that has hardly any deep links to it, be sen as important? Sites like DMOZ that are in essence pages full of links, score highly because people link to categories within it all the time. NATURAL linkage results in deep links to and from relevant pages within sites. Sites that have 50,000 links to the home page, but hardly any to the inner pages, yet have 1,000 pages of outbound links are OBVIOUSLY manufactured and not natural. TTHESE are the sites that will feel it most when the new technology is brought in further into the Google algorithm!

Apologies for the long post :(

[minstrel]

When the web started, academics posted papers, and on those papers they cited OTHER papers. Within these citations that referred to other research that re-enforced the current paper were often links, and these links would go along the lines of 'doctor x stated in his recent paper called Search Engine Data retrieval in the area covering <latent semantic indexing> that........
And don't forget all of the basics of Google technology were hatched in that same academic environment. If you can understand citation, you can understand at least the fundamentals of Google.

Academics can refer (or used to be able to) to a document called the Citation Index, which compiled statistics on how frequently a specific article or resource in the scientific press was cited by another article. That's basically the origins of link: :)

[Old Welsh Guy]

NOOOOOOOOO Minstrel you are WRONG :(


ALL this linking and web stuff is REALLY COMPLICATED AND NEW STATE OF THE ART, You need to have the 'special sauce' to be able to work it out :D

[TangoUK]

There's nothing top secret or clever about getting Google to show you more links than they do through their (delibarately broken) link: operator.

I've mentioned it at least a couple of times on here before (many moons ago).
It's just a question of queries and operators.