I've noticed when I submit my site to directories,* search engines such as yahoo, msn, etc, will pickup these backlinks very quickly. In fact I have about 1700 backlinks to one of my sites from Yahoo! AllTheWeb, AltaVista, MSN** . Only about 9 of them are actually from google though, the rest are from the other search engines. This seems to be pretty normal after looking at other sites. I'd imagine backlinks listed on google are the most important? Are the backlinks google finds (doing a link:www.website.com search on google) the only links your site gets credit for? What's the best way to get google to pick up on backlinks? *as of now I've been doing it all manually and only to the highest ranking directories and industry specific directories --- is this a good way to go about it? ** checked with http://www.submitexpress.com/linkpop/ -- by the way, is this the best backlink checker tool to use? What backlink checkers do you guys recommend? What are the pros and cons to each?
It's a matter of opinion which search engine's backlinks are most important. I believe that backlinks from the big 3 are all important, not one more so than the other. Google will pick up on back links, just give it time. The best way is to get backlinks from sites that follow Google's webmaster guide to creating a crawl-able site, and which updates frequently (meaning Google would crawl it more frequently)
I do believe backlinks shown in Yahoo are important as well. Not sure why Google won't show them all though.
Google only shows a small portion of your links, so you will always have less backlinks in google than you will have in yahoo. You should continue to build backlinks and your backlinks will increase in google. You should try to get backlinks from different sources article directories, press releases, and blog postings.
Exactly right. You are also told about getting more backlinks, but quality is the word today not quantity.
Be sure you are checking the backlinks from google through the Web Master tools, otherwise the search "link:website.com" function just shows you few of them.
link:www.yoursitehere.com is not always (in fact, it is rarely) accurate. Google Webmaster Tools is a better thing to use here.
The link operator show only %1 links I think. To see your back links, use webmaster tools or yahoo site explorer.
Actually I read somewhere that your back links in Google get updated once in a while (just like PR) its good because other competitors cant find your back links source, this is what i read anyway. from personal experience i never find my back links for new sites but i always check the search engine page ranking for my main keyword and you can notice the changes daily!
I had heard that G is not big on directories as MSN and Yahoo are and you don't get high ranking links from it and better time would be spent doing content updates.
Acquire as many as possible GOOD backlinks from related sites either by non disclosed payment or use your own domains (avoid link farm detection so make sure they are registered under different names.) Be cautious as Google are getting better at spotting paid links so avoid any directories that add your site under 'featured' or 'sponsored' as this is a red flag to google that you are engaged in link buying. Google will penalise a site for unnatural link building so watch out for using the social bookmarking sites as they are clamping down on their mis-use. Looking at the unnatural linking alogs from the opposite side can also help reduce competition;-)