Does Google Count Internal Links in Backward Links Listing? Options

[Neal N.]

Hello,

I'm new here, but was pleased to see Jill is here (love your newsletter!).

Here's my issue: I've read that Google counts internal links as part of their backwards links listing. However, whenever I check my backward links, none of my internal pages are listed as linking back to my home page (External ones are listed, but none of my internal ones are.....very strange). And yes, as far as I can tell, Google has crawled my site, and has indexed almost all of my internal pages (My wife and I have a small site).

You could say that I just answered my own question, but I've looked at backward links on other sites, and have noticed that internal pages ARE listed in backwards links listings.

I'm confused.....perhaps I'm doing something wrong in my HTML coding?

My site in question is: www.beanteacher.com

Appreciate any insights!

Regards,

Neal

[Grumpus]

Google is JUST learning (and improving at a VERY rapid rate) how to crawl dynamically generated sites - most of yours is CGI. I didn't get internal linking credit until two updates ago on my dynamic site. There's a good possibility that CGI internal linking logistics are still on the drawing board.

Also, bear in mind that unless the page is PR4 or higher, you WILL get some sort of credit, but it won't show in your backlinks at Google.

G.

[cre8pc]

Welcome Neal and Grumpus to the Forum...

um, Grumpus? You get my vote for funniest Avatar!

Kim

[Neal N.]

Grumpus,

Also, bear in mind that unless the page is PR4 or higher, you WILL get some sort of credit, but it won't show in your backlinks at Google. 

Thanks! I didn't know that PR4 was the cutoff to be visible in the backward links. However, my home page is a PR4, and it points to my internal pages, but none of the internal pages show the "backlink" from my PR4 homepage......... :?

Actually, only the shopping cart portion of my site is CGI (granted, we have about 100 products, so it is a lot).


Kim - thanks for the invite. Sorry I misposted.......I didn't see the google forum below this one. Any chance of getting it moved over?

Thanks again!

Neal

[Black_Knight]

Hi Neal

Moved it for you.

[Neal N.]

Ammon,

Thanks for the move!

Best Regards,

Neal

[Grumpus]

Thanks for the welcomes, folks!

Neal - when you put the URL of one of your "deeper pages" into the Google bar, does it offer you the "linkto" and "similar sites" link? Or does it give you the "Huh? Never hoid of of it, but you can try clicking here if it's a valid URL"?

Either way, though, I believe (and I'm talking from the proverbial **** here, not really knowing any facts) that Google does things a little differently when it works DOWN your site tree as opposed to working UP the tree. In other words, your root page is likely to get more credit for internal links from down inside the site than your internal pages getting credit from the root page and other pages upwards of it. Does that make sense?

Now, that being said, I really have no idea WHAT those differences are, but it just appears that they do exist. Much of this whole "structure effect" is pretty new to me as Google just started giving me internal credit two updates ago. -And it still seems to be deciding how much credit to give - two updates ago I had 250+ internal links giving credit to my front page, this month - 1,600+. Some internal pages (which have virtually identical link structure) get credit from a half dozen pages, some as many as 250 (and interestingly - none get more credit than the total pages that were GIVING credit 2 updates ago).

G.

[Marcia]

Two clicks from the homepage, once it gets to the Hawaiian shirts, they won't get crawled with those URLs. Google does better with asp and php pages than Cold Fusion, and it seems to vary with others, but there's a limit to the number of parameters.

The solution is either mod_rewrite to create "normal" pages, or block the dynamic pages with robots.txt to get them out of the way altogether for search engine purposes, and set up descriptive flat html keyword rich content pages that are included in the site navigation for PR distribution that link into the dynamic pages for actual shopping.