Backlinks vs Incoming links
-
Hi,
I've been getting stuck into some SEO analysis for a company I work for and I am a little confused. I've tried a search to get an answer but this has ended up being more confusing. The company has been around for decades and their website since 1996.
I read everywhere about 'backlinks'. My SEO toolbar shows ZERO backlinks in Google but 218 in Bing. Google Webmaster tools shows nearly 2,000 incoming links from other sites.
Is a backlink the same as an incoming link? Why is this tool showing zero? I am even getting email from SEO spammers saying my backlink count is ZERO. But I can see links everywhere I look to the site.
Also, on the link analysis tool with SEOMOZ a competitor is showing 3000 external showing links with 250,000 total links. My site is showing 50 and 470 respectively.
I have spent the best part of two years getting the site listed in industry related directories. We have paid for entries in Yahoo and some other high (PR) -ranking directories. Prior to me there was someone else adding the site to directories and getting incoming links from industry related sites. So this has been going on a while.
Why are the backlings showing as zero but links from external sites showing over 1800?
Thanks
TT
-
I'll only chime in on Google: they don't like to show you everything. Across their products, they (at best) give you only a sampling, so even if numbers appear low that's not necessarily an indication it's true. The data I get from Analytics often is not the same as what feeds into Omniture; my takeaway is that these are indicators, not facts, to work with and make intuitive decisions.
Some of the other responders mentioned some other tools/options - variety is always good as, quite frankly - not one tool is perfect. You're on the right track and are doing your due diligence and that's what matters the most.
-
Doing a link: search in Google will only show you a very small number (sometimes none of the links) that Google has indexed. Use Google Webmaster Tools to see all (or at least most of ) the links that Google has indexed for your site.
Don't worry - Google still counts the links that they don't show for a link: search.
Bottom line: ignore the results you see from doing a link: search - they are too incomplete and don't matter.
-
Thanks for the response.
If Webmaster tools is showing over 1800 incoming links, Alexa is showing over 200 and I can verify many solid links myself from top directories such as Yahoo business directory then why is Google showing none?
What do I need to check or do?
My concern is if Google is showing no backlinks (and if I use link:www.domain.com in Google I get no results) then this will affect the PR and the position in SERPS.
-
There's only 3 categories of links
- Links pointing to your site. These are "incoming" and are sometimes called "backlinks" since they "link back" to your site.
- Links from your site to another site. These are "outbound" (sometimes you'll see the acronym OBL for "outbound link")
- Links within your site (between pages of the same domain). These are most commonly called "internal"
As Adam said, no search engine shows all your links (except maybe Yahoo). Open Site Explorer and Linkscape are a much more complete picture because Roger (the SEOMOZ bot) is crawling the web and indexing them. Better still is that SEOMOZ ranks them on importance. Honestly, it's one of the best things about the SEOMOZ PRO service.
-
"incoming link" is not as common of a term to use, but it does mean the same thing as backlink.
Google search and Bing search will not show you all your backlinks - just a selection.
Google Webmaster Tools is the most complete and accurate data you can get on how many backlinks you have. Open Site Explorer (SEOmoz) is also very helpful, as it helps you analyze your backlinks.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link juice am i getting it or not?
We have a newspaper source that links to a domain that forwards to a page on our website. Do we get link juice from that? Go here: https://dailygazette.com/ click on "Classifieds" then "CapRegion Homes" the button goes to the website www.capregionhomes.com which forwards to our main website, a page we built for them. My question is: Because the link from this site first goes to another site that auto-forwards to us are we actually getting any link juice from the daily gazette on this or is that first site getting all the juice & we technically are getting link juice from capregionhomes.com ?
Reporting & Analytics | | Cfarcher0 -
Queries vs. Organic Keywords in GA
Could someone explain how the following metrics in Google Analytics are being calculated: Search Engine Optimization (Acquisition): clicks on a certain query Campaigns (Acquisition): sessions on a certain keyword GA Help states that both 'queries' and 'organic keywords' refer to the actual string a user enters in Google Search. In that cases it seems that 'clicks' on a SERP result through a given query and 'sessions' through that very same query could not be miles apart. E.g.: Clicks through query X = 170 Sessions through organic keyword X = 8 Thank you for helping me out!
Reporting & Analytics | | WeAreDigital_BE0 -
Domain Authority and Links drastically decreased in less than a month
I'm fairly new to SEO, and am left completely perplexed about why our two SEO client's links and DA decreased so drastically in so little time. Looking at their stats on Moz, between May and June, their DA's went down by 3-5 (which, they were fairly low to begin with), and external links were halved! This is rather concerning to me as building their external links has been my focus for the past few months for both of them. There are a number of tweaks that I could make to site structure in terms of meta descriptions and page title length (though I can't fix that as the clients want to keep the titles as is), however there are no critical errors. I have also placed a lot of filters on both of their Google Analytics pages as they were getting what I just now realized was a ton of spam, though I don't see how that would affect anything. I just can't imagine what lead to all of those external link suddenly dropping. I imagine the drastic drop in those lead to the DA decrease, but again, I'm very new, so I'm not certain. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I have been panicking quite a bit since I've seen this!
Reporting & Analytics | | everestagency0 -
URL open with double domain names when click on visit URL link in Google Analytics
I have configured Advance Filter to track the sub-domains traffic as follow : Filter
Reporting & Analytics | | gamesecure
Type: Custom filter > Advanced Field A: Hostname Extract A: (.*) Field B: Request URI Extract B: (.*) Output To: Request URI Constructor: $A1$B1 After that, I am able to see sub-domains record and View Full Page URL In Reports. But when I check reports in All page (e.g. Behavior >> All Pages) or selecting Landing Page as a Primary Dimension. Further I click on Icon given next to displayed Full URL to visit to same domain page, in browser the page
opened but the double domain name comes so page not open successfully. For example : In landing page list following URL given : www.sitegeek.com/compareHosting/arvixe_vs_hostgator If I click on icon given next the displayed URL, in browser following URL will
open https://sitegeek.comwww.sitegeek.com/compareHosting/arvixe_vs_hostgatorIs this First Domain with HTTPs, coming from Google Analytic 'View' where this is taken ? How Can I remove double domains? Thanks, Rajiv
0 -
Links On Expired Domains
Does anybody know if a link on an expired domain affects your SEO? I'm just asking because the SEO agency we used before used to create websites and then link to our company - very spammy. We have since ditched this agecny, however they wanted an extortionate amount to remove these links. Therefore, we decided to wait until these domains expired and then the links wouldn't exist. However, I am now completing a link audit and some of these sites are still appearing in the results (obtained from Link Research Tools) but I cannot access the links because the domains have expired. Can anyone help?
Reporting & Analytics | | AAttias0 -
Cross Domain Tracking in GA (without cross domain links)
Hi everyone, Been doing some research about cross-domain tracking in Google Analytics (preferably Universal Analytics where documentation is a bit spare). All of the tutorials focus on the auto-linking and ensuring links to the other site are taken care of. I'm considering a site that may not cross-link like that at all (or it may, but won't be the main avenue). A good example is: www.gap.com
Reporting & Analytics | | ketanmv
www.bananarepublic.com
www.oldnavy.com Now, they do link to the other brands in their navigation but let's pretend that they don't necessarily do that. Gap Corporate may want to roll up all these domains into a single reporting profile because customers can clearly visit any of those sites on their own and buy. It would be nice to know that Visitor X bought 2 items from gap.com and 3 from oldnavy.com... and of course, here were their campaigns, etc. From what I am reading, I am not sure this is really possible. It seems that the cross-domain code is really only best for when my main site links to another domain for checkout or something. But in my example, we are definitely not in control of that kind of behavior. Thoughts? Perhaps I need to recommend they go with subdomains only which Universal GA seems to handle quite fine out of the box. Thank you!0 -
How to find backlinks from GWT domains
Given the list of GWT domains that link to our site, what is an easy way to find the actual pages on those domains that link to our site? Best,
Reporting & Analytics | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Link being indexed
So I found this link to my website on the huffington post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/california-car-insurance-rates-vary-study_n_2122614.html it's at the bottom in the "around the web" section. My question is this article has been around for almost 4 months yet the link does not show up in WMT. I would like to know if the link to http://www.shiftins.com is indexed and passing authority. Thank you.
Reporting & Analytics | | jameswalkerson0
