strange that google picks up all my links on external links and shows me them via my admin section of google sitemaps.. I have enjoyed top listing for years for my localised search terms but i have always been baffled by the ole PR on the tool bar .. tryiong to get a better rnak but it will never get me a better positoin for my local market than i have now .. so why am i trying to get a better pagernak .. is it for prestige, is it to make me feel better ? I really dont know I recently designed a new site for my self and within 2 months got every page on the site pr4. Strange thing is i SEO'd the site for my localised key words and the google backlinks checker @ http://www.barryswebdesign.co.uk/backlinks-checker.php i designed for my site tells me my old site has less links than my new site,,, my new site is non existant for local market but my old site is still ranked first .. Google is a strange place to play Does it only show relevent links in the links results .. if so why ?> surely due to latent semantic indexing out of 1000 link i will have more than a crappy little amount like 20 or so ... any ideas ?
Google looks at more than just the total # of links to your site. Perhaps your old site has BETTER links. Links from higher quality sites that have been around a lot longer. Lots of links helps but it takes time, google would not want a site to fake 2000 links and all of a sudden be #1 for anything they wanted. So they look at how long the links have been around, how often the links grow, quality of them as well as meta info. Like title tags, etc. Also keep in mind that the links themselves are a big factor, meaning the link text, if your old site has some a link like "Michigan web design" it will probably out weigh the new site with larger number of links.