Search Operator Link: How accurate is the data?
-
How often do you guys use the search operator "link:"? How accurate is the data? Why the numbers of links when we use the parameter is way lower than the number on Google webmaster Tool or open site explorer? It only show the most powerful links?
-
How often do you guys use the search operator "link:"? Not very Often
How accurate is the data? Its accurate, but it only shows a small percentage of the links
Why the numbers of links when we use the parameter is way lower than the number on Google webmaster Tool or open site explorer? It is lower because in the past people used this search operator to find links pointing to competitors to help with their own link building plan
It only show the most powerful links? No it shows a random selection most of the time.
-
Yep, and Christoph Cemper has stated that you see ~15% of your actual links in Google WMT.
-
It's less accurate than what a teenager tells their parents is going to happen on prom night. It's not accurate at all, and Google has said this for years. Rand actually wrote about it four years ago at http://moz.com/blog/google-link-command-busting-the-myths.
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
-
SEO Content Audits Questions (Removing pages from website, extracting data, organizing data).
Hi everyone! I have a few questions - we are running an SEO content audit on our entire website and I am wondering the best FREE way to extract a list of all indexed pages. Would I need to use a mix of Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, AND our XML sitemap or could I just use Webmaster Tools to pull the full list? Just want to make sure I am not missing anything. As well, once the data is pulled and organized (helpful to know the best way to pull detailed info about the pages as well!) I am wondering if it would be a best practice to sort by high trafficked pages in order to rank them for prioritization (ie: pages with most visits will be edited and optimized first). Lastly, I am wondering what constitutes a 'removable' page. For example, when it is appropriate to fully remove a page from our website? I understand that it is best, if you need to remove a page, to redirect the person to another similar page OR the homepage. Is this the best practice? Thank you for the help! If you say it is best to organize by trafficked pages first in order to optimize them - I am wondering if it would be an easier process to use MOZ tools like Keyword Explorer, Page Optimization, and Page Authority to rank pages and find ways to optimize them for best top relevant keywords. Let me know if this option makes MORE sense than going through the entire data extraction process.
Technical SEO | | PowerhouseMarketing0 -
Sitelinks only show when the URL is searched- Why don't they show when our company name is searched?
Why is is that when I search "protonmail.ch", sitelinks show for our company. However when you search for "ProtonMail", no sitelinks show, even though our homepage is now on the top result. We've been trying different things to improve the navigational structure of the homepage, such as using the <nav>tag. If you have any thoughts on why sitelinks might not be showing up, we'd really appreciate it! Thank you </nav>
Technical SEO | | kevinzh0 -
"Links to your site" in google webmaster tools not showing any data
Hello All I have a very strange query regarding the "Links to your site" section in webmaster's account my account does not show the Link data after so many days (more then 30 days) of verification. Can you please help me out how can I get my data in the webmaster's account?
Technical SEO | | barnesdorf
Please note I have verified the account using Google Analytic verification process. (does this affect?) I have seen this issue in my two websites which I have verified by Google Analytics. Please help me out.0 -
Confused on footer links (Which are best practices for footer links on other websites?)
Hello folks, We are eCommerce web design and Development Company and we give do follow links of our website to every projects which we have done with specific keywords. So now the concern is we are seeing huge amount of back-links are being generated from single root domain for particular keyword in webmaster tools. So what should be the best way to practice this? Should we give no follow attribute to it or can use our company logo with link? LtMjHER.png
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
How to fix broken links?
Hi, I use WordPress CMS with Yoast SEO plugin. I have just found out that my 403 errors increased dramatically. It seems that all my tags below of each post are being broken for some reason. When i click on the tags i get the following massage: **403 Forbidden Request forbidden by administrative rules. ** I assume it has something to do with the configuration within Yoast SEO plugin. Dose anyone know how should i fix that? Thanks, Raviv evsGujA
Technical SEO | | Indiatravelz0 -
Link Indexing Thoughts
We have have several promotional Articles put out for a few client sites, (posted on sites - not article directories) That was in Sept, it looks like they have not yet been indexed - any ideas on best to get them indexed? Not just these, but a lot of external links indexed quickly -Google seem to be slowing getting to them (big web after all....)
Technical SEO | | OnlineAssetPartners0 -
Targeting US search traffic
Hello, I've noticed the site I'm working on gets about 30-40% of Google organic search traffic from the US and the rest comes from around the world. All the site's customers are in the US and so the thought is to focus getting traffic more from the US. I know google webmaster tools has a geo targeting mechanism for the site in question but what I don't want to do is turn that on and then traffic from non-US sources goes away; I suppose that's not so bad if traffic from the US bumps up accordingly. Do you have any experience on this area? thanks -Mike
Technical SEO | | mattmainpath0 -
Nofollow link passing link juice
Can a link which is nofollwed pass link juice ? Please see the discussion at - http://www.seomoz.org/q/if-multiple-links-on-a-page-point-to-the-same-url-and-one-of-them-is-no-followed-does-that-impact-the-one-that-isn-t
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050