We know that backlinks play a part in the pagerank of a site. So, we work hard to buy links that are one way and hope that we can get our RP up. My question is: Does Google include backlinks from search engines in their calculation of the PR? Like...If I was listed in Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, Metacrawler and all the other search engines, would they consider that as backlinks that could potentially help my PR?
They aren't indexed generally so no. Imagine if Google indexed MSN's entire index of Yahoo's index. You get the same index 4 or 5 times. It doesn't work like that fortunately.
Alright, I appreciate it. It would be cool if we got all those back links, but then the necessary number of back links to increase PR would go up, so...Thanks!
most of the SERPS seem like duplicate content, and they are almost without links and a lot of external links so they will considered a bit spammy
No, because search engines are different to normal websites and directories there is no navigation to where you are listed, hence no backlinks!