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
-
How Am I Linked to These Sites?
I was going through Google Analytics, specifically looking at the Channels under Acquisition. I found a number of sites that Google is giving credit as sources of traffic.
Reporting & Analytics | | TowerMarketing
When I went to the sites, however, and searched the page source for links to my site, I could not find any. My site is www.towermarketing.net. The sites being listed by GA are:
blackhawkhardware.com
musicas.baixar-musicas-gratis.com If anyone can tell me how Tower is getting traffic from these sites, and what I can do to fix it - because at this point I am considering them spam - I would appreciate it. Thanks!0 -
Difference between External Followed Links and Total External Links?
Hello, could someone please elaborate on what is meant by "External Followed Links" vs. "Total External Links"? Does "External Followed Links" mean the number of links that are generating traffic to the site? Or is there some other way to conceptualize it? Any help would be appreciated! Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | lincolndigitalgroup1 -
Behavior Flow vs. All Pages report in Google Analytics
In the interest of determining why our ecommerce site isn't converting, I've been spending some quality time with GA. I've suspected that our front page is part of the problem, especially where our organic traffic is concerned (we get a good deal of referral traffic from a link on an OEM's site). According to the Behavior Flow report under the Behavior section of GA, organic traffic to our home page is hemorrhaging (roughly 60% bounce rate). But when I went to the All Pages report (Behavior > Site Content > All Pages) and looked at organic traffic to our home page, then looked at the Medium as a secondary dimension, I'm getting a bounce rate of 35%. Why the massive discrepancy? Can somebody assist?
Reporting & Analytics | | ufmedia0 -
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 -
By linking adwords to ga is it possible to get it done within one profile only?
Hi mozzers, i have a ga account with 40 profiles and none of them are connected to adwords. I would like to connect adwords to just the combined profile and not the other 39 profiles? Is this possible? if it is how would you do it? thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Google not reading my canonical links
Hi All, New to SEOmoz but so far love it. My reports list tons of duplicate links and webmaster tools does as well. In fact it just updated last night and added several hundred more. I have the canonical tag on my products. Here is a product example page: http://www.stonehousecollection.com/card/funny-christmas-cards/KX296a.html Thank you for the help. Matt
Reporting & Analytics | | mker0 -
Google Search Bar Vs Address Bar To Determine Number Of Times the Domain Name Is Typed In..
Hello, I'm trying to get a rough estimate of how many times a domain name that we're interested in acquiring is typed in to the address bar. If the google keyword tool says for instance, that the exact match domain name is typed in 720 times, how many times it typed in to the address bar? example.com - 720 global searches Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Optimize0 -
No Link Data Available for this URL appears often. Are my sites too small to show up?
I am on the trial until Mar 5, 2012. I seldom get the info I want. Is it because my sites are too narrow a niche? I don't seem to be getting the data I'd like from your service. I'm trying to like it, but when I keep getting messages like this, it makes it hard to justify: "No Link Data Available for this URL appears often" Sample sites that I am unable to get data. I especially would like to know how many backlinks exist for each site. I paid someone to help me with them and I'd like to verify their work.: http://costaricadentistreview.com/ http://costaricadentistreviews.com/ http://costaricadentalimplants.org Any suggestions? Thanx Kurt Gross
Reporting & Analytics | | kurtray0