Indexed vs backward links what are they? 1

[robert89]

First Question
I've done some research on the search engines. Have found I have tones of pages that have been indexed, but far fewer are listed if I do a url:sitename search. What is happening when google lists 340 pages than link to mysite, but lists 10000 under indexed?

Second Question
If I link to your page and you link to mine - does this carry more weight with search engines than

You link to me but I don't link to you, however I am linking to other sites which may not be linking to me.

 

[ChrisHirst]

Not entirely sure what point you are making on the first question. maybe show us an example. The link:command doesn't show all the backlinks that Google knows about and the criteria seems to change from time to time.

reciprocal linking, there is a theory that reciprocal links are being devalued slightly.

But linking out should be done because the site may be useful to the visitor or it is relevant to your site and likewise for inbound links, request them from relevant sites/pages not simply because of some perceived value. Targeted visitors should be the goal not some arbitary value of a green line.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Hondy]

quote - Chris "But linking out should be done because the site may be useful to the visitor or it is relevant to your site and likewise for inbound links, request them from relevant sites/pages not simply because of some perceived value. Targeted visitors should be the goal not some arbitary value of a green line."

But surely search engine optimization is EXACTLY that? To make sure people land at YOUR site and not someone elses? I can't see why you would optimize your site for any other reason than to increase traffic.

Although many people supply free information including myself, if you are trying to earn a living or simply "optimize" your site you need to know how it's done.
You can have an excellent site, but if you are doing all the wrong things then you won't get any hits, especially if the target audience is relatively small.

Let's face it, it the giants in a particular market use reciprocal links then you will have to use them too to stay competitive.

 

[ChrisHirst]

Optimisation is more than getting hits, It's really about getting better results and ROI.

traffic for just the sake of it, can be expensive. If you are using a host that will charge you when you hit a bandwidth limit, Having thousands of hits to your site with no increase in earning will cost you dearly. Even if your site is giving away information and you rely on on-site adverts like Adsense, Affiliates or you sell banner ads you still need to target visitors to maximise the earning potential.

If your site is about Cycling for instance a reciprocal link from a site on Home Decorating even if it is PR7 just isn't going to get you many interested visitors, it may get you some browsers but they will just add to the bandwith useage.

My point is about the people who look for sites that have a Toolbar PR of 3+ and think that it will make a vast difference to their rankings.

One thing to remember is the generic terms in any market will bring hits, the specific terms will bring buyers.

50% conversion of 100 visitors could mean more profit than 5% of 1000 visitors.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Hondy]

I get you, i never considered using links with unrelated sites.

Do you know what the answer to his question 2 is? Does a riciprocated link carry more weight than linking to a well rated site? I expect it would as having a high ranking domain linking to you must rate it higher.

 

[ChrisHirst]

This item from webpronews covering SES London and the session from Matt Cutts (a developer with Google) probably covers it.
As usual nothing too dramatic is given away, but it does show that links from "authority" sites are given a little more weight.
Of course this also translates exactly into how a real visitor would see it. You find site A that has good information about "x" and they link to site B, the inference is that site A thinks site B is also good and recommend you visit it.
Simple eh! this SEO stuff ain't rocket science at all.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Hondy]

Interesting about the charity weighting! The sublinks to the keyword formulas was a bit much though..

One thing is still unclear though, if I link to another (relevant) site without a reciprocal link (regardless of the targets page rank) would you see ANY benefit or might you just as well not put them in (in terms of SEO, not providing good content - of course I would put them in but I would like to know if my page rank would increase by course of adding these links)

Ta

 

[ChrisHunt]

You won't see any direct page rank benefit from linking to another site.

However, a collection of good quality links = good content = likely that others will link to you = page rank. It's more round-about, but it's how Google is supposed to work - more people link to good sites than to bad ones.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[ChrisHirst]

by page rank you will be referring to PageRank I assume, which quite honestly is irrelevant to the ranking in the SERPs.
Outbound links are useful in several ways, Visitors don't always remember where they found info but often remember where they found the link so may well return to your site.
Even though it's a link to another site, it's still content on your site and will probably have relevant keywords and is given weight. Just consider how many directories appear for some searches and how high they rank in the results with little content other than the anchor text and a brief descriptions.
And as previously mentioned it helps with the "authority status" of your site and can then lead to unsolicited inbound links.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[ChrisHirst]

Chris hadn't posted when I started typing, Honest,



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Hondy]

ok, that's great, as I said, I'll add the links in then, just one more thing and you can have a star .... A link that is a picture, is this the same a text link? Given that the link info is available in the source code? i.e. does a picture link have the same as a text link in terms of crawling?

 

[ChrisHirst]

Yes and No.

For crawling they are same, as it is simply a <a href=""> etc wrapped around an image. However for SEO a text link is better because the alt attribute text which is used when the <img> tag is wrapped in a link does not seem to have the same weighting as anchor text does.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.