I recently received another 'please help' email from a gentleman called Ian who runs a venture company in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was worried about the result of the variety of dilemmas including indexing and link dampening, and was eager for help. However, he had read some relatively misleading articles previously, so he had a somewhat mixed-up comprehension of the factors at play. I decided to submit the details of our conversation, because I suspect he's perhaps not alone in his confusion and concern.
Ian's e-mail consisted of many issues. I've shown each independently below, followed by my response.
Q: When I look for the number of backlinks to my site using 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', I see only 2-3 results. It seems that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Will there be an occasion delay before they are paid to your site? '
A: Firstly, I do believe you could have the dampening link filter somewhat confused. Based on the dampening link filter theory, your links are located and identified by Google, you simply do not obtain the full benefit from them until confirmed period of time has passed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) does not stop links from appearing in Google's results when you look for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about such things as the dampening link filter. To begin with, it's far from established / accepted fact. Several well regarded SEO professionals do not believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does occur, it only affects those companies with the budget to build the large numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to induce it. That is no issue, if your amount of backlinks suddenly increases by 20.
And subsequently, do not believe everything Google lets you know. By looking for 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', you generally speaking only see a small percentage of real links to your site. The easiest way to search for links would be to search for only the URL 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk', then on-the page that shows next, select 'Find web-pages that include the term 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk' .' If you do it this way, you'll see all of the pages that have your URL. Typically, the URL will soon be an active link (or at the least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). Once you do this search, you'll see that your website has about 169 links, perhaps not 23.
Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I am aware this is a report of pages which have been changed. I'd 3-2, it went down to 28 and now today it is down to 26. Do they just keep the pages for a month or will there be more towards the indexed pages than I realized?
A: The number of indexed pages is just the number of pages on your own site that Google 'is aware of.' Theoretically, the only real time the age of a page is needed is when the page is also young*, i.e. Google lions have not visited it nevertheless, or Google has not updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I think it's just a temporary transfer. How many leads to Google's searches varies just about constantly. If you are interested in geology, you will probably hate to read about Locating Lucrative Affiliate Applications \u00b7 Storify.
*Actually, technically speaking, it's been suggested that Google isn't capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be o-nline (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are sent out from the list. (This is an extremely rough description of the idea - if it is happening at all, it is likely to be a lot more difficult than this.) If this is happening, it might explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Though I think it's a long-shot, a good way to deal with it's to maintain high quality information, to keep producing backlinks, to keep raising it, and to generate a Google sitemap. To learn more about sitemaps, head to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login.. To get extra information, consider taking a look at: <a href="http://armorg
Ian's e-mail consisted of many issues. I've shown each independently below, followed by my response.
Q: When I look for the number of backlinks to my site using 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', I see only 2-3 results. It seems that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Will there be an occasion delay before they are paid to your site? '
A: Firstly, I do believe you could have the dampening link filter somewhat confused. Based on the dampening link filter theory, your links are located and identified by Google, you simply do not obtain the full benefit from them until confirmed period of time has passed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) does not stop links from appearing in Google's results when you look for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about such things as the dampening link filter. To begin with, it's far from established / accepted fact. Several well regarded SEO professionals do not believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does occur, it only affects those companies with the budget to build the large numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to induce it. That is no issue, if your amount of backlinks suddenly increases by 20.
And subsequently, do not believe everything Google lets you know. By looking for 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', you generally speaking only see a small percentage of real links to your site. The easiest way to search for links would be to search for only the URL 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk', then on-the page that shows next, select 'Find web-pages that include the term 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk' .' If you do it this way, you'll see all of the pages that have your URL. Typically, the URL will soon be an active link (or at the least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). Once you do this search, you'll see that your website has about 169 links, perhaps not 23.
Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I am aware this is a report of pages which have been changed. I'd 3-2, it went down to 28 and now today it is down to 26. Do they just keep the pages for a month or will there be more towards the indexed pages than I realized?
A: The number of indexed pages is just the number of pages on your own site that Google 'is aware of.' Theoretically, the only real time the age of a page is needed is when the page is also young*, i.e. Google lions have not visited it nevertheless, or Google has not updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I think it's just a temporary transfer. How many leads to Google's searches varies just about constantly. If you are interested in geology, you will probably hate to read about Locating Lucrative Affiliate Applications \u00b7 Storify.
*Actually, technically speaking, it's been suggested that Google isn't capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be o-nline (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are sent out from the list. (This is an extremely rough description of the idea - if it is happening at all, it is likely to be a lot more difficult than this.) If this is happening, it might explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Though I think it's a long-shot, a good way to deal with it's to maintain high quality information, to keep producing backlinks, to keep raising it, and to generate a Google sitemap. To learn more about sitemaps, head to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login.. To get extra information, consider taking a look at: <a href="http://armorg