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
-
Tracking Mailto Links Through Event Tracking
Hi I am trying to get event tracking working on some mailto links on a website using Universal Analytics. I've read various resources as nothing seems to mention mailto links. Does it not work on tracking outbound clicks on emails? Thanks in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | Karen_Dauncey0 -
Organic traffic vs. GWT data
Hi, how are you? I'm having a question becasue of an inconsistency between the data GWT gives and the one GA gives me. When I see the ammount of clics GWT tells me in february, it says 32850. When I go to Channels --> Organic Search, it says 51014. The difference is really big! Do you happen to know why this huge gap between data?
Reporting & Analytics | | arielbortz0 -
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 -
How do I find "bad" backlinks
Hi, I have used open site explorer to review our back links, but I don't know how to determine which ones are bad? For example, I think I am getting penalized for links from strictlygifts.com, but not sure. StrictlyGifts is a second site of ours that has a web hosting plan (our main site does not have hosting - long story). We use this site to store things that link to our main site, trophycentral.com. As an example, we have several online catalogs with hundreds of pages that link to products on trophy central. I have a gut feeling that this is hurting us, but I don't know how to confirm it. I can easily remove the links but don't want to if they are helping us. Can anyone help? Thanks!!!
Reporting & Analytics | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0 -
Subdomain and relative link paths cause crawl errors
I have a Wordpress blog on our subdomain and we use relative paths on our domain. It appears as though Google bot is crawling from the subdomain categories back to the domain relative paths. This of course results in hundreds of 404 pages. Any suggestions as to how to resolve this issue without changing the relative path structure of our domain? I can provide more information if need be. While I realize these issues are not that pressing, I'd obviously like to remove as many errors as possible. If anyone has encountered this problem, especially in Wordpress I'd really like to hear your solution or lack there of. Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | BethA0 -
Do links with tracking codes pass PageRank?
I have a client that has acquired a link from an influential partner but the partner has set the link up to have clicks tracked within their analytics. Do links like this pass PageRank: Anchor Text
Reporting & Analytics | | SearchEngineRescue0 -
What is the most effective link building technique?
Hi seomoz community! My question is this: Which is more effective in a) generating traffic and b) increasing authority in the long and short term? Press releases or back-linking through blogs and forums? Some more detail: You have $6000 to spend over a 6 month period on which ever technique you choose. $6000 can buy you 20 press releases, each distributed to over 250 online news outlets (yahoo finance, td waterhouse, ABC, etc), emailed to editors of publications in your industry niche, and tweeted by 10 to-15 influential tweeters. Every release is published by the same news organization plus 5-10 new sources per release. The news organizations all have relatively high domain authorities (60-90) and generate 2500-3000 unique pageviews in total for each article. They also all link back to my site through the articles. $6000 can buy you 6 months of back-link building - outsourced overseas in India. Based on keywords that our target audience are using to find our competitors (long-tail included), we post links through blog/forum comments that appear in results when those search terms are queried. The blog/forums have varying domain authorities in our industry but none higher than 60. Again the question: Which technique is more effective in a) generating traffic and b) increasing authority in the long and short term? Press releases or back-linking through blogs and forums? My current website has a domain authority of 66. Please share your opinions or thoughts. Thanks 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | fourthdimensioninc0 -
Tagging URLs Linkbuilding and anchor links
Hi, I am going to publish a press release on a number of different websites. First and foremost, I want to build anchor links back to website for specific keywords. Secondly I want to measure clickthrus from each site using parameter tracking in GA. I want to know if I put in a url with ?utm_source=xxx, will this have any impact upon my linkbuilding efforts? i.e. will search engines attribute the keyword to the long url with tracking or the url without tracking. I understand that everything from the ? mark is ignored. However, i just want to double check before I publish release. Thanks for your help. Mik
Reporting & Analytics | | increation0