Confused About Google's List, Link Dampening, & No. of Links?

SEnuke: Ready for action

I recently received another 'please help' e-mail from a guy named Ian who runs an adventure organization in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was concerned about the result of a number of dilemmas including indexing and url dampening, and was desperate for help. Unfortunately, he'd read some rather misleading articles in the past, so he had a somewhat mixed up comprehension of the facets at play. Because I suppose he is perhaps not alone in his confusion and concern, I chose to submit the facts of our discussion.

Ian's mail consisted of many questions. I have shown each separately below, accompanied by my reaction.

Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my site using 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', I see only 2-3 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Visit linklicious.com to compare the meaning behind it. Can there be an occasion delay before they are awarded to a site? '

A: Firstly, I do believe you could have the dampening link filter just a little puzzled. In line with the dampening link filter concept, your links are located and identified by Google, you simply don't obtain the full benefit from them until confirmed period of time has passed. The dampening url filter (if it exists) does not stop links from appearing in Google's benefits when you search for them. (The only reason your backlinks mightn't can be found in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about things such as the dampening link filter. For a start, it is not even close to proven / accepted fact. Several well-regarded SEO professionals do not have confidence in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does exist, it only affects those businesses with all the budget to build the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to induce it. If your number of backlinks suddenly increases by 2-0, that's no problem.

And secondly, do not think anything Google tells you. By trying to find 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', you usually only view a small percentage of actual links to your site. In case you choose to dig up more on linklicious.me affiliate, there are heaps of databases you should think about investigating. In the event you wish to dig up further on linklicious.com, we know of tons of libraries you should think about pursuing. The simplest way to search for links is to search for only the URL 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk', then on-the page that shows next, select 'Find webpages that include the term 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk' .' Whenever you do it in this manner, you'll see all the pages that contain your URL. Generally, the URL will be a dynamic link (or at-least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). Once you try this research, you'll note that your site has about 169 links, not 23.

Q: Another question is approximately found pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). To explore more, please consider checking out: try linklicious tutorial. I am aware this can be a history of pages which have been changed. I'd 32, it went down to 28 and now today it's down to 26. Do they only keep the pages for monthly or will there be more to the pages than I realized?

A: The number of indexed pages is simply the number of pages in your site that Google 'is aware of.' Theoretically, the only real time the age of a page is necessary is once the page is also young*, i.e. Google spiders have not visited it nevertheless, or Google has not updated its list. Why the number of indexed pages is reducing, I suspect it is only a temporary transfer. The number of results in Google's searches differs pretty much constantly.

*Actually, formally speaking, it has been suggested that Google isn't capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be on line (and the 10 million more that are added every single day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are forced from the index. (This is an extremely rough description of the theory - if it is happening at all, it's apt to be a lot more complicated than this.) If this is happening, it may explain why the number of indexed pages is reducing. Though I think it is a long shot, a simple method to handle it's to maintain high quality content, to keep producing backlinks, to keep increasing it, and to generate a Google sitemap. To find out more about sitemaps, go-to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login.. To download a free - and very useful - tool for making a sitemap, visit http://johannesmueller.com/gs/..

I know there's a great deal of confusion surrounding these issues, so I hope you've found this exchange valuable.

Happy indexing!.