Zero Backlinks in Google?

[blaknite]

If I go into webmaster tools and look at my site (graphpaper.us) under links -> externa links, there are over a thousand backlinks. (In yahoo its more) I've been working hard on building them up to that from 200 just a little over a month ago. What is worrying me is that the site shows zero backlinks using the comand "link:graphpaper.us" Tools like checkpagerank.net also shows me as having no backlinks.

Theres been some talk of google updating pagerank today, but mine has gone nowhere even after all my hard work building links. I can't say I expected much, but I figured I might finally get up past pr1. I'm wondering if maybe there is something wrong thats holding me back.

Any suggestions as to what causes zero backlinks to show with the link: command?

 

[weblord]

on google.com.ph it shows up 4 results.

 

[netmeg]

Don't pay any attention to what the link: command says; it's wrong, probably on purpose. Google prefers to give verified site owners the true count of their links in Google Webmaster Tools. If GWT and Yahoo Site Explorer count those links, then that's what you go by.

Now, you say you built up your links in the last month. That's a tad fast for that many links; you don't want to raise any red flags. But if they're good and legitimate links, you will see PR changes - but bear in mind, by Google's own statements, the toolbar PR is always anywhere from three to six months behind the "real" Pagerank. So if you only built them up in the last month, you may actually have a better "real" PR but you won't see it probably until the next update.

If your links are not of good quality, such that Google devalues them for some reason (for example if someone linking to you gets banned or filtered, or turns into a parked page) then it's possible to lose PR without losing actual links.

The only place that I know of to see a current PR is in the Google Directory (dir.google.com - their version of DMOZ) and only if you already have a listing there. And they don't give a number, just a bar, and you have to kind of guess. But supposedly that's current.

That said - PR isn't going to help with traffic, and not all that much with ranking. And traffic is what you want to worry about.

But the one thing you *don't* have to worry about is the "link" command.

 

[netmeg]

I do know for a backlink to show for the "link" command; it has to carry a certain amount of Google PageRank. That "certain amount" has changed many times over the years as the Internet has "expanded", but the premise of a "link" command backlink carrying PR has not.

Actually, Lumpy, that's not true. Not sure how that myth got started. I can look at the backlinks with the "link" command on any of my sites and find plenty with 0 Pagerank, or greybar Pagerank (which means no PR at all)

The links command in Google was never intended to be definitive, by Google's own admission. It was just supposed to give a representation. When they did decide they wanted to let you know how many links Google thought you had, they figured they'd put it in Google Webmaster Tools so that only the site owners would have access to that (correct) information, rather than your competition.

 

[netmeg]

Well keywords in anchor tags are definitely still good.

But as far as link information - go by what's in your GWT, YSE and Live Webmaster account. That's what counts.

 

[blaknite]

Well I know google doesn't have me de-indexed because I do have a pr1 according to checkpagerank.net and I show low pr in webmaster tools.

As to the quality for the backlinks, I know most all of them proably have nofollow tags. A good majority of them come from posting on blogs with my username bieng graphpaper and my sitename in the url. I've also submitted to a few dozen directorys, but I don't know how many actually approved a link. I really didn't expect much. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't messed something up that was keeping google from recognising the links.

I have done a few things that I can think of that might throw a wrench in the works. The site started out on graphpaper.w7x.com and then was moved to graphpaper.us with the old subdomain 301'd. Also the home page is graphpaper.html instead of index.html and am using htaccess with directoryindex to make people land in the right place.

I might have my pr split between graphpaper.us/ and the same page at graphpaper.us/graphpaper.html (haven't figured how to fix that one yet)

 

[angilina]

The link: command is just to show you a sample of the backlinks that a site have. This command will not show all backlinks. I have over 20K backlinks in google webmaster tools, but if I check via the link command, I see only 13 backlinks.

 

[blaknite]

I have a fix to this - ie check www.TelepresenceForum.com and www.TelepresenceForum.com/index.php (or anything really, even non www), it will always default straight to my main URL.

Do you have access to your .htaccess file in your root directory for graphpaper.us?

It's a really simple fix and you won't split PageRank anymore.

L2

I do. Now that I've thought about it a bit more I think I might be able to get it working right. I know what the standard fix is, but that wasn't working right because I had some other stuff going on in htaccess. (Just one of those things I had to sleep on and come back at it from a different angle.)

 

[dbtbandit67]

the method in which google and yahoo count backlinks are different, as well as any other web site

 

[zurpit.com]

link: only shows a sample of back links so the competitors cant steal the back links

 

[ganb]

Same is also happening with me as well. I have 16 backlinks on Google and when I checked for Yahoo I see 1500+ backlinks. Whats the matter I do not know.

 

[Mesa SEO Solutions]

Might I suggest using Yahoo site explorer to search backlinks... It however stops at 1K results.

 

[Li Weng]

The way I see it, as long as you are seeing results with traffic, don't worry about what link: says. At the end of the day it's the cash that really matters for your business.

 

[mdamin76]

Usually, google will show only links from quality contents, or PR4 and above sites. The means of quality contents, it doesn't mean that the site must be PR4 and above. A PR0 site can sometimes be included as quality links.

 

[bluearrow]

@ l2ride55 : Your forum shows me a PR2 ( gone down ?) and 1600 indexed pages. I wonder how much traffic you get daily ?

Back to the topic, I think what Google webmaster tools showing is correct but it tends to change often. But 800 backlinks within a month is something. Having links is great but too many links too fast might cause problems.

 

[proson]

blacknite don't worry about it, the google link command won't show you all the links, and it's quite normal, I will use yahoo link command to check the link profiles. so don't worry... I had that questions when i first build my website,

 

[milvos]

link:url is not accurate, focus on what you see in google webmaster tools. With PR this will come overtime sometime takes a few months for things to start moving upwards from link building.