Backlinks vs Incoming links

[TheTub]

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

[josh-riley]

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.

[AdamThompson]

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.

[TheTub]

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.

[Highland]

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.

[AdamThompson]

"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.