Why do my backlinks not show up on Google?
This post is taken from Search Engine Guide - The small business guide to search marketing page. The problem with my blog is when I Google for my backlinks, I am not getting any result. For some reason, my backlinks are not quality enough or simply not enough to reveal in Google search result. I’m pretty sure someone else are facing the same phenomena.
“Why do my backlinks not show up on Google?”
Complete Question: “I often read your articles (even if I haven’t put all the advice to use yet) and thought you might be able to help. No one else has been able to yet. The problem is with the backlinks on Google; there are none showing to my site. I am unable, as were my hosting company, to come up with a reasonable explanation. As you can see there are plenty of sites that have my web address on them linking to them - just type www.shotbythesheriff.co.uk into the google search bar to see (some of) them. Also if you do the same thing that I did on Google, search link: http://www.shotbythesheriff.co.uk on Yahoo and MSN, you do get some of the my backlinks to come up.
If you have an explanation as to why these links do not show up on Google I would be most interested to hear from you as it has bewildered myself and quite a few professionals I have asked.
Answer: I took a look and the number of backlinks your site has on Yahoo (34) and on MSN (10) and I am pleased to say I have an answer for you:
A large part of my job revolves around deconstructing the tactics that a client’s competitors use to succeed and ultimately provide an improved strategy to my client; we call this competitor analysis . When creating these reports a core step is the analysis of the backlinks for every competitor I am asked to review. During the backlink analysis for any analysis I have done there is only one thing I will bet on; in every situation Yahoo and MSN provide a far more accurate telling of the backlinks that each competitor has. This is why many of the excellent link-analysis programs like OptiLink recommend using Yahoo! to conduct link analysis – it is far more accurate.
So why, might you ask, is Google not as forthcoming? The answer is rooted within Google’s growing popularity and the stakes involved in attaining top rankings that everyone strives for – Google simply does not want to give too much information away that might aid those who wish to improve rankings. As a result, the number of backlinks revealed by Google is often dramatically less than there actually are. This does not mean that Google has not seen the backlinks to your site, but merely that it has chosen not to reveal these backlinks.
Additionally, I should note when backlinks do show up on Google they are often from only the highest quality sites; those that are already considered credible themselves and are undeniably relevant to the linked website.
As an example of the absolutely mind-boggling differences between Google, MSN and Yahoo backlink results, here are the latest stats for my site www.StepForth.com : Google (842), MSN (9,501), Yahoo! (25,178).
In summary, I expect the reason you are not seeing your backlinks appear on Google is that you simply do not have enough of them. In addition, the ones that you do have are not of a high enough calibre for Google to merit revealing them. The result is you may not see any backlinks appearing on Google until you have 5 more or 200+ more… there is no firm ratio. For now, continue the battle for more relevant backlinks and I hope that my article gets you a few in itself.
For more information on what constitutes a “quality backlink” here is an appropriate article “ What Exactly Are Good Backlinks? ”. Here are some other articles and postings that may prove interesting to you:
