Indexing links

theshamu

Hi Guys,

I have been working on my companies website (part time) trying to target specific keywords with good success just with on site seo. (low comp in fairness but fairly happy never the less)

But I am now starting to focus on off site seo. I have made a few high pr (1-5) blog comments in the past 2 days, with anchor text pointing back to that specific page on our site.

My question is, how long does it normally take for the link to get picked up by google and then indexed? And how do I check if it has?

Cheers.

tricky D

If the blog comment links have the rel="nofollow" attribute, they won't get indexed as links. They generally are nofollow to kill blog comment spam. So you need to check for that first.

IRE60

Use a backlink checker tp see if they have picked up. Plenty available online. Use one that checks nofollow and pr.
I would depend on how ling the pages are crawled and then indexed.

cormee

theshamu wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I have been working on my companies website (part time) trying to target specific keywords with good success just with on site seo. (low comp in fairness but fairly happy never the less)

But I am now starting to focus on off site seo. I have made a few high pr (1-5) blog comments in the past 2 days, with anchor text pointing back to that specific page on our site.

My question is, how long does it normally take for the link to get picked up by google and then indexed? And how do I check if it has?

Cheers.

Depends on the profile of the site you're linking from, if it's a high ranking/popular site it could be within half an hour but if it's of no relevance it could be days or weeks.

Tricky D's explanation is most likely - the blog owner probably has comment links set to nofollow to prevent spam

market myself online

Don't worry about the nofollow attribute, that has been widely discredited even by Google's spam master Matt Cutts.

Results generally appear within a 4 month period (thats because the Google bot will generally crawl and reindex even the most stagnant pages in this time).
One of the best link checkers is majestic seo
As long as the links are on sites which have been indexed by google (and if you found them Google probably has too), then Google will see the links.

It is widely acknowledged that Google see's alot more than it lets on, but isn't as smart as people think. Realistically this means just keep getting links, from everywhere.

Lindsay

tricky D

Sorry but this is just poor advice that risks wasting time on futile SEO efforts. That Google are 'widely discrediting' their own invention after just a few years is not credible.

Here is what Matt Cutts actually has to say:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4UJS-LFRTU

That is linked to from http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569 which is Google's nofollow policy and was last updated only last week.

Also from here: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

He has clearly stated on many occasions that while they are not indexed as links, they might be worth getting in some cases so that users visit your site but not for direct link juice. Link spam - no, getting visitors - yes, especially if your content is worth users signing up for or providing a follow link from their own resource if your content is good enough.

market myself online

apologies for misleading. The below is my opinion and not provable fact:

whilst matt cutts does make it very clear that nofollow does not pass page rank, he does have certain incentives (namely being head of Google's anti spam team) to disclose certain pieces of information in certain ways. The comment by Matt discrediting nofollow to which I was referring was an apocraphyal statement made at SMX Advanced in Seattle 2009, where he supposedly stated that page rank (and therefore link juice) left over from nofollow links 'evaporated'. This sort of action would be made by google to try and limit gaming of search results by using link sculpting across the web to artificially channel link juice to a particular page. The exact ramifications of this are slightly technical but are covered here:

http://windrosesoftware.com/sculpting/

One interesting fact is that if true, a competing SEO can negatively effect another SEO's ranking by inserting 'nofollow' links along side normal links and therefore removing some of the SEO juice from the normal links.

humorously reiterated here (note the comment by matt cutts):

http://www.seofaststart.com/blog/googles-operation-bendover-exposed-nofollow-pagerank-sculpting

This opened the door to Leslie Rhode's claim that something was wrong with the whole nofollow attribute. Whatever google does, the googlebot still has to spider links with a nofollow attribute otherwise they would be opening themselves wide to significant gaming. By following these links they have to index the pages and adjust the linking graph for that page. If the graph becomes outwardly unnatural it will attract the attention of Matt's team. For instance if a business owner got the wrong idea about nofollows and went out of their way to stop any nofollow links pointing at their site (slightly hypothetical if Matt is to be believed and the average link graph has a single digit percentage of nofollows).

Next we have to ask the question...How much does page rank actually affect your google ranking? In 2006 it was significant, but in 2011 and from most observations I would suggest no more than 5%, this means that other factors are influencing the ranking. The biggest of which I suggest is number of links and quality of links. See a recent study by seomoz.

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

So in summary here are 3 reasons to continue using links with nofollow:

1. nofollow may not work the way google (and matt) tells you it does, in fact it may still genuinely positively affect your Google Search Engine results.
2. the nofollow link only really affects Google, and although Bing carries less traffic, it will still get you just as much money if you do it right.
3. Demonising nofollow links can be DANGEROUS, as it leads to strange ideas like trying to stop all nofollow links or not publishing a facebook page because it will never give you a proper link.
4. (I know I said 3 but hey you get an extra one). People will still click on links even if the search engine is ignoring them. Its important to always spread your eggs in different baskets in case one of the google updates catches up on you (which the latest 'panda' may already have done).

So a nofollow link is still useful. IF YOU ARE A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER OR WEB DEVELOPER DONT WORRY ABOUT NOFOLLOW. Just do the following 2 things:

1. Get lots of links
2. Produce great content on your site.

NB. Vince Samios is a well known and very successful epreneur, possibly why Matt felt it necessary to respond. His question was meant to be loaded to try and catch Matt out, but Matt managed to gloss over some of the flaws in the application of the nofollow attribute

market myself online

market myself online wrote: »

The biggest of which I suggest is number of links and quality of links.

I should have noted before, by quality of links I mean multiple factors including but not limited to: tld, age, directory inclusion, ip, outbound linking.

Basically look for sites that look professional, well written, and well respected.

The Apprentice

Well its a how long is a piece of string question really..
If its home page link, pretty quickly if its pr3+ or an internal link it could be hours days even weeks..
Why dont u google linkalicious bro for pinging what u have already done..
Or perhaps google rss submit ..

As someone mentioned matt cutts name.. god i just wish he would get run over already for misleading us on what google likes, wants, needs and dislikes. He.s a plum a pr spin doctor.


Cheers Moggwai

condra

Nofollow or not, blog commenting should only be one part of a much bigger SEO strategy.

Your blog and forum comments should be engaging, polite and helpful.

market myself online

I hope my piece was engaging, polite and helpful.

Thanks for your support on the matt cutts/no follow issue Moggwai, I thought you would be on Trickyd's side of the fence on this one I need to work on my rss strategy, I might pm you someday about that.

No hard feeling's trickd I'm only trying to do what works.

L out