We redeployed our site using oscommerce on 6/6/05: www.seatshield.com The site looks a lot better, but we have a lousy google ranking. It has a PR of '3' in IE ('0' if firefox for some reason). And we are on page 4 of the search results for our main term "waterproof seat covers". Google shows no backlinks, however google displays lots of results if I search for "www.seatshield.com". Why is this? Is there something we need to do to get the backlinks to start counting? Thanks.
What was your PR before you started ? I only see few quality backlinks - 10 backlinks using link: www.seatshield.com and 5 backlinks using link: seatshield.com - in google, even MSN shows only 3 backlinks. PR 3 for such a site is pretty good. searching for _www_.seatshield.com describes pages where _www_.seatshield.com have been mentioned. They do not help in your PR unless the page points to you.
Just give it some time. Google does periodic "backlink updates" and you will see them then. The backlinks will be "accounted for" sooner but won't show until the "update". It typically happens quarterly. Same goes for PR. Also keep in mind that Google won't show all backlinks even after the update.
Ahh ... there's my problem. I was typing in link:www.seatshield.com instead of link: www.seatshield.com (i didn't insert the required space). We had a PR 3 before the redesign. It probably helps that we've had the site for a long time and it's not a heavily contested topic. Thanks for the feedback.
actually, the space is incorrect. You do not want the space there. Google has more information about their link operator. Google has only shown a sample of what they most likely use for backlinks for your site for some time now. A better indication of what search engines might see is using the linkdomain: operator on Yahoo!. There is really no way of knowing what Google sees as far as backlinks these days.