Non-Recognition of Links
-
Hi All,
I asked about a client last month and have had to do some other digging to try to find out what's going on with its Google rankings.
According to our link-building spreadsheet, we have got up to 50 links (from 50 domains) in process of being actioned and a large proportion of these are actually in existence.
There are two questions:-
1. Open Site Explorer only recognises 3 domains - as I know that other domains exist and are pointing (mostly 'followed'), what can be the reason OSE doesn't recognise this?
2. What can be done to encourage these external links to be more easily accessible by OSE and, presumably other bots?
Other Points:-
1. I initially thought it might be crawl blocking issue causing the rankings, but Bing/Yahoo rankings are slowly dragging themselves upwards.
2. Robots.txt is not blocking any of the site
3. Pro on-site analysis for the target keyword is 'A'
4. The website's stats per OSE are better than some competitors in the top 20 except on the root domain issue, which is why the above point is important.
Link building for other clients has worked really well without hiccups and with general gradual recognition, so any tips from more experienced folks out there would be gratefully appreciated.
Many thanks,
Martin
-
Hi Martin,
You might find it useful to take a look at the Linkscape Update Schedule in case timing is a factor.
I believe Rand outlined the recent changes to the indexing rationale in this webinar
Using Open Site Explorer to Uncover New Marketing Opportunities , but if you still have questions then as Brian suggested, it may be a good idea to lodge a ticket or email the Help Team. help [at] seomoz.org.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Hey, if the page you got the link on was interesting enough that you wanted to get a link on it, than what harm is there in letting the world know about that resource via Twitter, Facebook, or whatever other service you choose? ... and if it's not worth talking about, or you would be embarrassed to speak of it, than how "quality" was that link anyway
On the OSE Catch 22, gotcha... all I can think of is that perhaps the low quality sites are not always re-crawled with the update, thus not picking up the new links?. An SEOmoz staffer with intimate knowledge of the crawl behavior could better answer that one though
Brian
-
Hi guys,
Thanks for the feedback so far and I will be definitely checking GWT and maybe even tweeting out the links. I did think that seemed a little bit... you know, false - but I guess it's just ensuring Google takes note of the actual page? What do people think? I'm unwilling to Facebook them out, because that's even more 'in your face' and I'm unwilling to SPAM out 50 domains just to get them indexed. Advice welcomed on these points.
@Brian - yes, I suppose they could be coming from lower domains, but equally many have been pulled from competitor link data from OSE, so catch 22?
@Theo - I will double-check
@Ross - firmly NO to Black Hat. I don't do this ANYWAY, but equally something's screwing up the SEO anyway, so going down that route could permanently jeopardise the site and that's not what the client's paying for.
-
Like Theo said, I would start with Webmaster Tools ( Links to your site > All domains area ), if they are in there, Google knows about them, and if they have any value to pass though that link, they are passing it.
One other quick note, if you know those pages you are getting links from are all index and follow pages, you may want to just double check to see if they have been indexed ( Google search for site:www.the-exact-domain.com/and-page-url.html ), if you get no results back, then you know those pages are not in the index (not found yet, or otherwise dropped).
On the OSE thing, if I am remembering this correctly Rand said something about how they were focusing the crawl, pulling in less low quality sites - could it be that the domains you are getting links from are low quality?
Brian
-
Hi Martin,
Although OSE is an awesome tool it is still in its infancy and may not have the capacity to crawl the links you are talking about. Another way to check the links is to have a look via majestic SEO, they having a much bigger index than OSE and tend to show a good deal more links.
I would also have a look at the Google Webmaster Tools and see if the links are present in there.
If you are worried about the links being crawled and indexed by google then take the URL and run it through Google itself with the site: command. If it does not turn up there is a chance it may not be indexed. If it is not indexed I believe that the site: command that returns no values must send a Google bot to the URL to crawl it- can't confirm this is true but it just makes good sense.
If you want to be doubly sure you links are getting crawled you can force a crawl by Google by bookmarking the page thorugh a bookmarking service or sharing it in a social network.
WARNING, MESSY BLACK HAT TACTICS COMING UP*****
And if you really want to give it a good ole kick up the jaxie you can load up a automatic bookmarking tool and bookmark the URL with you link on over a couple hundred domains. Problems with this method include:
- need to buy spammy software like bookmark demon
- you are in effect creating a link wheel which may devalue your efforts
- it sticks out like a sore thumb
- links on bookmarking sites drop of the link graph or get devalued very quickly..
However, the positives that come out of this technique are you link will be crawled and indexed and it will have another couple of hundred links pointing at it....... for a while.
If you are working with a client I would recommend just running it through facebook or tweeting out the link and stay away from forcing any crawls. However, if it is the middle of november and you have a christmas shop that needs to rank quickly get that black hat on.
Hope that helps.
-
Hi Martin,
Although OSE is an awesome tool it is still in its infancy and may not have the capacity to crawl the links you are talking about. Another way to check the links is to have a look via majestic SEO, they having a much bigger index than OSE and tend to show a good deal more links.
I would also have a look at the Google Webmaster Tools and see if the links are present in there.
If you are worried about the links being crawled and indexed by google then take the URL and run it through Google itself with the site: command. If it does not turn up there is a chance it may not be indexed. If it is not indexed I believe that the site: command that returns no values must send a Google bot to the URL to crawl it- can't confirm this is true but it just makes good sense.
If you want to be doubly sure you links are getting crawled you can force a crawl by Google by bookmarking the page thorugh a bookmarking service or sharing it in a social network.
WARNING, MESSY BLACK HAT TACTICS COMING UP*****
And if you really want to give it a good ole kick up the jaxie you can load up a automatic bookmarking tool and bookmark the URL with you link on over a couple hundred domains. Problems with this method include:
- need to buy spammy software like bookmark demon
- you are in effect creating a link wheel which may devalue your efforts
- it sticks out like a sore thumb
- links on bookmarking sites drop of the link graph or get devalued very quickly..
However, the positives that come out of this technique are you link will be crawled and indexed and it will have another couple of hundred links pointing at it....... for a while.
If you are working with a client I would recommend just running it through facebook or tweeting out the link and stay away from forcing any crawls. However, if it is the middle of november and you have a christmas shop that needs to rank quickly get that black hat on.
Hope that helps.
-
The fact that OSE doesn't pick up a link doesn't necessarily mean a link isn't 'active' and giving your site value. Even though Linkscape captures a vast amount of URLs, it only crawls a portion of the web, most likely from the bigger pages down. If many of these links to your site are coming from smaller / less powerful domains, they might not (yet) have been picked up by Linkscape.
Try looking at Google Webmaster central to see if the links are included there. If Google lists them as links there, they are very likely to be counted by them as well.
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
-
How important are Internal Equity-Passing Links in rankings?
Hi,I ran opensite explorer of a customer site: www.enviosadomicilio.com and compared it with the most ranked competence sites. In almost all the factor enviosadomicilio.com has the best scores, except in Internal Equity-Passing Links. The competence has aprox 20K Equity links and another 2K meanwhile enviosadomicilio.com only have 296. Do you think that factor could be the reason that enviosadomicilio.com are in ranking 15th while the competence in 1st and 3rd?. How could we get Internal-Passing Links?, we don´t have a lot of products or categories in the site. Thanks a lot.
Moz Pro | | ramirez_salvador0 -
Crawl Diagnostics saids a page is linking but I can't find the link on the page.
Hi I have just got my first Crawl Diagnostics report and I have a questions. It saids that this page: http://goo.gl/8py9wj links to http://goo.gl/Uc7qKq which is a 404. I can't recognize the URL on the page which is a 404 and when searching in the code I can't find the %7Blink%7D in the URL which gives the problems. I hope you can help me to understand what triggers it 🙂
Moz Pro | | SebastianThode0 -
Massive drop in linking domains - please advise!
Hi guys! Our site www.carwow.co.uk appears to have been punched in the face by the latest Moz update. It's claiming our #linking root domains has dropped from 225 to 135 and has subsequently hit our DA from 38 to 35. We haven't disavowed any links and our off-site strategy has been going well the past 2 months. Search performance has increased by around 15% (around 5k sessions) and rankings have improved week on week. Any idea if this is a Moz error? That's almost a 50% drop in linking root domains. Thanks, James
Moz Pro | | Matt.Carwow0 -
I have a client with a bit over 100 inbound links but Open Site Explorer shows total links on Subdomain as over 66,000, how can this be?
I have a client www.woodard247.com that shows only a bit over 100 inbound links. using the Open Site Explorer, they are a well trafficed local site and are not doing any grey hat or black hat techniques. However the rankings for their main keywords have suffered recently and we cannot identify any duplicate content or keyword stuffing issues. We have never purchased links or used link building software. Now for the main question: When we run Open Site Explorer it shows only a bit over 100 inbound links on the page and the domain, but the subdomain shows over 66,000 total links! How can this be possible? Could this be a problem? How can I find out what these links are since Open Site Explorer and Seo Spyglass both show only a hundred or so?
Moz Pro | | tjkirgin0 -
Link Assistant SEO Tool - Any Others?
I have the most boring copier service website, clients cool, concept is really boring; Well I am looking to generate this client some link back juice, cause this guy is struggling for traffic, and I am am struggling to generate a buzz about copier services?? Fortunately, it's only local, so that helps me with testing my localization campaigning. 🙂 Any opinions on this software? http://www.link-assistant.com Do you know of some better "Back Linking Software? I was considering buying it. But once I go to purchase it, I second guess myself; "It just looks shady, and the perpetual up-sale, turns me off.". I really just value the MOZer communities opinions! and I want to see what the community thinks of the above company, and if ya heard anything good, or bad. The Demo seems legit as hell!
Moz Pro | | smstv0 -
Problem with advanced linking domains report in OSE
Hi everyone, I request an advanced linking domains report in Open site explorer, but my csv file have only three columns as a normal linking domains report : Root Domain, Domain Authority, Number of Linking Root Domains. I have missed some important data as: anchor text, origin, target url Etc I try to request the same report two time, but I have the same problem. Someone have experienced this issue and know the fix ? thanks
Moz Pro | | wwmind0 -
MozRank per Link: Valuable or Worthless?
Since the MozRank and MozTrust metrics are on a logarithmic scale, I'm wondering if it's still valuable to get a general idea of the quality of a site's link profile by calculating: MozRank / Total Links MozTrust / Total Links Would this be useful, or is it always going to be higher for sites with lower MozRank & MozTrust since it's "easier" to achieve the lower values?
Moz Pro | | conquerapathy-644120 -
Link Building
Hi is there any free ways of link building where you do not use exchange link sites. Also are there any free tools and paid tools that you can use to increase your links to your site. I have a couple of new sites and i am trying to bring more traffic to them through link building and other methods and trying to find the best way of doing this. I have heard of people talk about free tools and paid tools but not sure which ones they are. any help would be great
Moz Pro | | ClaireH-1848860