How To Encourage Google To Discover Links?
-
I got a valuable backlink from a high authority website (MSN), but the link is placed in the middle of a slideshow with 20 pictures, and the only way to reach it is by clicking through the slideshow.
After 6 months, this link still hasn't been noticed by Moz or Semrush, and I assume Google hasn't seen it either, because it's in the middle of a slideshow.
Is there any way to encourage Google to find this link? Or am I all out of luck?
-
PageRank is a Google metric, which underpins their search engine. It's likely evolved since it was last publicly available, around a decade ago. When people say it's not used anymore, they tend to mean that it's not publicly visible anymore, or that Google is using some improved (renamed?) equivalent.
Page Authority is the equivalent Moz metric, which measures the strength of a page, and can be used as a proxy for PageRank. Obviously, being a Moz metric, it isn't used in Google's algorithm, but it's still useful to SEOs to estimate the value of a link. I must admit that Page Authority as a metric can be a little imprecise for new or undiscovered pages, though, which is unfortunate for your use case - similarly to Google, we initially guess the strength of a previously unseen page, before properly calculating it.
Domain Authority is another Moz metric but for evaluating domains rather than pages. Domain Authority attempts to answer the question "all things being equal, how likely is a page on this site to rank?". It's not very useful for evaluating links or pages though, because most sites have pages of vastly different strengths between their various pages. Again, being a Moz metric, Domain Authority isn't used by Google.
The two articles you link seem to support this distinction, but if you've found a Moz page that says otherwise, let me know, and I can get it updated.
-
Thanks, but I'm actually more confused.
Pretty much every SEO resource I can find on the internet (including Moz) says Domain Authority counts for much more than PageRank, and PageRank apparently isn't even used anymore now.
Here are two examples:
https://www.seoblog.com/difference-domain-authority-pagerank/
-
Unfortunately, this stumbles upon a common misconception with "high authority links".
The website (MSN) may be a high authority domain, but it's the strength of the page that links to you that counts, not the strength of the domain. Google's original PageRank methodology is based, as the name suggests, on using pages as nodes to estimate the prominence of other pages and their links.
As such, the fact that Google, Moz, and other tools may not have discovered this link, likely means it isn't a valuable link in the first place - despite the domain it's placed on.
That said, there are ways of forcing tools to discover links. For example, you could link to this page prominently on your own site. Really though this would achieve very little, unfortunately.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!
Tom
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
-
Backlinks
We all know that SEO companies often build backlinks from LinkedIn, Facebook, and X accounts for their clients, but where else do you build backlinks for every client to help improve your clients organic SEO?
Image & Video Optimization | | sarahwalsh0 -
Paid link with high quality content
I know paid links is against google's policy. But what if I have a very quality content including my paid link on blogger's site referencing to my site.
Link Building | | zeitnot
Is it counted as an ad or spammy content which leads to penalization by search engines ?0 -
When we use 'link:' for who get the link, how come google show us the same domain as a link.
the search result show the domain of its own. what is is? and is it meaningful as a link?
Link Building | | onedaykorea0 -
If you discount a subscription when the client links to you, does that classify as a paid link?
For example, we all subscribe to MOZ, but if we received a 25% discount on our subscription if we linked back, would that be considered by Google as a paid link, or would it be seen as a sales tool / promotion?
Link Building | | JonathanSmith0 -
Google Penalty
Hello thereIt has just been confirmed that my site is suffering for a Google Penality. The odd thing is that it is just for my set of key keywords and not the whole site. It seems in 2010 that a rouge SEO company I used sent loads of spammy links but I have lots of other good links too. What is your advice moving forward? Will it drop over time? Do I set up a new site (this has been established over 10 years) or try and get better quality links to compensate for the spam ones? Thanks so much! Kindest regards Victoria
Link Building | | vcasebourne0 -
Why does my website have 2,000+ links, but only 16 linking root domains?
Why does my website have 2,000+ links, but only 16 linking root domains?
Link Building | | thestudio40 -
Should I unify my links?
Checking at opensiteexplorer.org I can see that: mydomain.com has has DA 26, linking root domains 1, total links 22 www.mydomain.com has DA 26, linking root domains 31, total links 89 The 22 links to the non-www domain come from the same site, which I would be able to convince to change to the www domain. Is it worth doing it? Will it add up to better DA? Thanks J PS: with only 32 root domains I think I have to do some serious link building...
Link Building | | TIBA0 -
Acquiring a link
once I get a list of links from ontolo or the link acquisition assitant here on seomoz what is the next step? do i email that site? what do i actually do to get acquire the link? thank you for answering this! I am new to link building and so new that I dont actually know the steps and need help from someone. thank you VIjay
Link Building | | vijayvasu0