Does Google index search results pages for other search engines?
-
I've noticed a lot of backlinks to sites consist of SERPS from other search engines that Google. A link to a query like: http://searcheninge.com/?q=apple for instance. Does Google index these links and do they give any value?
Regards,
Henrik
-
1. Does google index these links?
In order for Google to index a page it needs to be able to crawl it. Crawlers are not able to activate functions on websites like 'search' or 'submit' buttons. Pages that you can only get to by submitting information cannot be indexed.
For example, if you enter a competition online, very often you will need to enter your name and email address and click "Submit". You are then sent to a page that says 'thank you for entering'. This is an example of a page that will never be indexed, unless somebody links directly to it. (and its not blocked by robots.txt, but that's another story)
In the same way, the crawlbots cannot do a search on Yahoo and then index the results page. The only way Google can index these pages is if somebody saves the SERP URL and then links to it from somewhere that the googlebot can index.
So the answer is yeah, Google indexes some of these pages, but only a small few of them.
2. Does Google give any value to them?
As Ronan said, search engines are just like any website, so their pages are just like any pages. It's unlikely that a SERP has a lot of inbound links (unless it's a particularly hilarious/interesting SERP) so the value of their link juice is unlikely to be very high.
Let me know if any of that doesn't make sense and I'm happy to clarify - reading back it is quite heavy!
-
Hi Henrik,
Yes, Google will index all the pages it crawls on the internet unless it is told to "noindex", the value of the link is the equivalent that Google would give to any website which is based on it's own algorithm.
After all, a search engine is just another website.
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
-
Why rich snippets have disappeared in Google search results ?
Hello, Few weeks ago, we have implemented a snippets strategy in order to increase our ranking for our blog posts. That was successful and our results were showing up in Google. But today, every single snippet has disappeared. We go back to a simple search result, without snippets for us or for our competitors. It seems that Google has delete rich snippet for specific keywords because for the generic keywords (for exemple "inbound marketing definition" in our case), there is still a snippet result. Do you know if Google has changed snippets parameters for keywords with low search volume ? Thank you !
SERP Trends | | Laure-Nile0 -
Using the same Google Analytics account for two sites
I have a friend who is concerned that his competition is trying something funny to show high traffic. The competition has two sites using the same GA tracking code. What impact would this have on his actual traffic. One site has high traffic 7500 daily the other site has 150 daily but gaining momentum
SERP Trends | | polarking0 -
How to optimize a site for search engines in India
I am working on a website that is a manufacturing company selling items to companies in the United States, India and some other countries. I already know what keywords I would target in the US but what about India? In the US we optimize our keywords for the Google search engine but in India what search engine is the biggest. I know http://www.google.co.in/ exists but is that the most powerful (most users) for India? Is there a certain language I do research for keywords or should I stick to English keywords? Also if I rank for a national keyword (no location in the phrase) well in the US should it be similar for India?
SERP Trends | | WhiteHat120 -
Google Places Citation Differences
Hi All... I know its important to get citations the same in terms of company name, address, phone number and URL but how dissimilar can they be before this causes problems with Google Places? One of my clients has citations with very minor differences to the correct address i.e.: 2a such and such a road when it should be: 2 such and such a road I cannot see duplicate listing for the company. Anyone got any ideas / experience of this? I don't want to suggest changing them all if its not nessasary? Cheers in advance. Justin
SERP Trends | | GrouchyKids0 -
Usage of the new Google quick flight search application
Hello I m interested in some first data or studies about how often the new google quick flight search application is used/clicked compared to the organic or ppc results. Would be awesome, if anybody knows more about it thx 5766285218_b588a1eb4e_z.jpg
SERP Trends | | Aris0 -
Why are search results different for 'Yahoo Search' and Powered by Yahoo search?
So if you misspell something (no dns to connect with... unregistered domain as an example) on a browser that uses a Road Runner connection, it takes you to a search engine 'powered by yahoo search' which searches for whatever you typed in. Anyway, today we noticed that the website of one of our clients isn't coming up in this 'Powered by Yahoo Search' via roadrunner but comes up in Yahoo Search for the same query. In fact, we noticed that our clients website (10 yrs + established site) is missing in yahoo powered by search but on all other engines. Any clues? I thought this should be generally the same across Yahoo / Yahoo Powered / Bing / Bing Powered. Could this be using something pre-bing merger?
SERP Trends | | qlkasdjfw0 -
Google Shopping
Hi There, We're promoting an ecommerce site that has a very high authority and very good rankings for many different products but the thing is that the site doesn't appear on google shopping. What do we need to do to make it appear there and have good rankings in the google shopping engine?
SERP Trends | | liors0 -
What is your favorite alternative search engine?
Outside of Google & Bing what is your favorite search engine and why? This could be for personal use, competitive research, user experience.
SERP Trends | | elephantseo0