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

SEnuke: Ready for action

I recently received another 'please help' mail from the lady called Ian who runs an adventure organization in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was concerned about the result of the number of issues including indexing and url dampening, and was desperate for help. However, he'd read some rather misleading articles in the past, so he'd a somewhat confused knowledge of the facets at play. I made a decision to publish the details of our discussion, because I suppose he is not alone in his frustration and concern. For alternative viewpoints, consider peeping at: lindexed.

Ian's email consisted of a few questions. I have shown each individually below, followed closely by my response.

Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my website using 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', I see only 23 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Can there be a period delay before they are credited to your site? '

A: Firstly, I think you may have the dampening link filter a bit puzzled. According to the dampening link filter idea, your links are located and acquiesced by Google, you simply do not get the full benefit from them until a given time period has elapsed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) doesn't end links from appearing in Google's results when you look for them. (The only reason your backlinks mightn't can be found in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet found the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about things like the dampening link filter. For a start, it is far from established / acknowledged fact. Many well-regarded SEO professionals don't rely on it at all. Moreover, even when it does occur, it only affects those organizations together with the budget to build the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly needed to induce it. If your quantity of backlinks suddenly increases by 20, that's no issue.

And subsequently, do not believe everything Google lets you know. By looking for 'link:www.betheladventure.co.uk', you broadly speaking only see a small percentage of real links to your website. The best 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 web-pages that include the word 'www.bethaladventure.co.uk' .' Once you do it this way, you'll see all of the pages which contain your URL. Generally, the URL will soon be a dynamic link (or at least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). When you do this search, you'll note that your site has about 169 links, maybe not 2-3.

Q: Still another question is approximately listed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I understand this is a history of pages which were changed. I'd 32, it went down to 28 and it is down to 26 now today. Do they only keep the pages for a month or is there more towards the pages than I realized?

A: The number of indexed pages is merely the number of pages on your site that Google 'knows about.' Theoretically, the only real time the age of a page is needed is when the page is also young*, i.e. Google spiders have not visited it nonetheless, or Google has not updated its list. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I believe it's merely a temporary shift. The number of leads to Google's searches differs just about constantly.

*Actually, technically speaking, it has been suggested that Google isn't capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently thought to be o-nline (and the 10 million more that are added everyday), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are pushed from the index. (This is an extremely rough description of the idea - if it's happening at all, it is apt to be much more complex than this.) If this is happening, it might explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. A great way to handle it is to maintain high quality content, to keep generating backlinks, to keep increasing it, and to generate a Google sitemap, although I think it is a long-shot. To find out more about sitemaps, head to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login.. To download a free - and very helpful - tool for producing a sitemap, go to http://johannesmueller.com/gs/.. In case people choose to identify extra info on better than linklicious, there are many resources you could pursue.

I know there's a great deal of confusion surrounding these problems, so I hope you have found this trade useful.

Happy indexing!. To study additional information, we understand people have a peep at: linklicious free account.