Internet Marketing with Josh SpauldingMaking Money through Ethical Internet Marketing.

38 comments

1. Mark Mason (68 comments.)
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:31 pm 

   Hey Josh — as a participant in this study, I can tell you that I am with you — I was surprised by the results.

   In the attached PDF, Milan makes a guess about the power of these “unanchored backlinks”. So that I don’t spoil the surprise for your readers, I will not reveal his guess.

   My guess is that the code for the crawler ignores links and crawls anything that it can possibly identify as a page — because the goal is to find EVERY page on the net.

   The link juice calculator, however, is probably different code. As such, I am guessing that there is little or no juice to these links. I base this conclusion in part on the observation that the unanchored links are not listed in the google link seach or the yahoo site explorer (as Milan points out in the report).

   But, we know that the Google backlink search does not report all backlinks — so I could be completely wrong.

   Anyway, I was surprised by this result, and really appreciate the post.

2. Stew
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:32 pm 

   Hey Josh, Interesting article about a process counter-intuitive to what you would expect. While it seems page rank is not affected drastically, it seems losing the backlink has other costs associated with it. I’d appreciate learning what you think. thanks.
   Stew

3. Josh Spaulding
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:35 pm 

   @ Stew – Like Mark, my guess is that it would not hold any authority. I think Google just wants to know about every page out there, so if their spiders come across text in the form of a URL, they grab it and stick it in their index.

   However, I don’t know that for sure… it’s just a guess.

4. Anthony
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:37 pm 

   Thanks man. Will have a read!

5. Forest (1 comments.)
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:38 pm 

   I definitely didn’t expect this to get indexed and was very shocked when it did…. I think this definitely makes it a little harder for us to determine authority of a site f we can’t see the links like this that Google are counting for something.

6. Alex Newell (19 comments.)
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:47 pm 

   I love it when strange SEO things like this turn up. It also seems to be true that search engines follow links with no follow tags too.

   The more data a search engine can gather the more money the company can make.

   Look at it from the money angle and it’s easy to figure out

7. Edgar Boutaric (1 comments.)
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:48 pm 

   To summarize, each of us needs about the same proportion of garbage links as the rest of the web.

   However, there may be a flaw in this method: In order to get their standards, Google probably uses the ‘universe’ as reference and it has a high proportion of spam. That’s not a good way to calculate a ’standard’.

   May be they have a set of ’super top’ trusted sites sites (perhaps including oracle, IBM, Microsoft, amazon…) to set their standard.

   What do you think ?

8. Mark (4 comments.)
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:54 pm 

   Damn. I’ve been working on auto-article submitter too. I was going to ask you to take a peek at it and give me some feedback when it’s done (in exchange for a free copy?), but it looks like you already found a new one to endorse

   We’ll see how great it really is :p

   Interesting post too, by the way. Doesn’t change anything, but it’s good to know.

9. Marc
   23rd February, 2009 at 7:56 pm 

   Hey Josh,

   I’ve seen you state a couple times that Milan’s article submitter will be the “best ever” but I’d like to know more. Maybe you could do a post on why his article submitter is better than the rest… say APR or ASP… because I’ve been looking for an article submitter recently, and don’t have the funds quite yet to purchase. I have had my eye on APR for quite some time now… I need more information to persuade me otherwise.

   Thanks,
   Marc

10. Internet Marketing (7 comments.)
    23rd February, 2009 at 8:01 pm 

    That was a great read, thanks, and excited to see the new article service, I am always looking for new article marketing products.
    Thanks,
    JR

11. Josh Spaulding
    23rd February, 2009 at 8:01 pm 

    @ Alex – Re: SE’s following nofollowed links: yes they do, but Google doesn’t assign authority to those links.

    @ Edgar – I won’t lie to you, I have no clue what you’re talking about

    @ Mark – Well I’ll take a look if you like, but I doubt it’s better than Milan’s I’ll let you know if I think it is though.

    @ Marc – I’m not trying to persuade anyone right now… just mentioning it. When it launches you’ll hear of its features and the pros and cons.

12. John (1 comments.)
    23rd February, 2009 at 8:11 pm 

    Hey Josh, first comment here. Sounds like one can use the above information, not just on a site but in submitted articles as well, yes?

    As an example, I just read your update of $5 Mini-Site Formula. So on page 13, about the “bio”: “To learn much more about the different types of mortgage loans, visit GetHomeMortgageLoan.com where you’ll find this and much more, including mortgage rates and quotes.” Where your have anchor text on “mortgage loans” and “mortgage rates and quotes” but not on “GetHomeMortgageLoan.com”… Google would read this as a link and therefore allow you to use your “mortgage loans” anchor text for another, different link. Is that where all this is leading?

13. Milan (3 comments.)
    23rd February, 2009 at 8:31 pm 

    @Mark,
    But it would be interesting to add this site to Google Webmaster tools as that tool shows much more (all?) the backlinks.

14. Tony Stai (1 comments.)
    23rd February, 2009 at 8:51 pm 

    Great post Josh, never thought of this before but it makes sense.

    I wonder if there will be a long term article directory backlash if articles are given a couple extra non-hyperlinked url’s in the text body.

    Also, might see a bump in blog spam with hyperlinks in the text. Kind of makes nofollow irrelevant.

15. Iowa Freelance Writer
    23rd February, 2009 at 9:01 pm 

    Definitely an interesting case study, and I agree that I’m surprised. I would think without the link to actually follow that the page wouldn’t get indexed, but obviously this assumption was wrong! Thanks for sharing this report with us!

16. Tissa Godavitarne Fan (1 comments.)
    23rd February, 2009 at 9:11 pm 

    That is really surprising to find out that a link like that would count. I am sure sooner than later though google will make sure that does not happen. It is better to just have relevant one way links coming to your site that are legit.

17. Edward
    23rd February, 2009 at 10:52 pm 

    Not exactly scientific though is it?

    That Google found a brand new domain and tried to index it is not uncommon. I’ve had it happen several times – normally before the site is actually ready to go live. There are no links to it *anywhere* yet Google still finds it.

    I would have been more impressed if Google had been able to find an orphan page on a brand new domain with the only route being via non-linked plain text.

18. Josh Spaulding
    23rd February, 2009 at 11:01 pm 

    @ John – Actually that isn’t directly related to this. That’s just how I do my sigs these days because EzineArticles now only allows 2 active links and I want to get my anchor text in there for both. I don’t believe Google gives any authority to these types of links… it’s just interesting to see that a plain text URL can actually be indexed by Google.

    @ Tony – I don’t see any type of backlash because of this. Remember, just because a URL is indexed doesn’t mean it carries any authority.

    @ Tissa – Obviously Google wants to index them or they wouldn’t It’s certainly a legitimate URL and just because they indexed it doesn’t mean they assigned authority to it.

    @ Edward – No, it’s not scientific, but interesting nonetheless.

    That’s basically what happen. It’s a brand new domain and they found it. Whether it’s the root or a subpage is irrelevant.

19. Andy@ buy mlm leads (1 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 12:04 am 

    Hi Josh,
    Thanks for the heads up on this. He brings up an interesting point about being able to get links where links are not allowed. I wonder what the article directories would do about since they don’t like to give out any more links than they absolutely have to.

20. Terry Heath (17 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 12:04 am 

    Interesting case, Josh. The problem seems that you’d need to have the right keywords in your domain name since you couldn’t use an anchor text.

21. Tim
    24th February, 2009 at 12:13 am 

    I think this report is a little flawed. My sites never have any backlinks (for the first month) and they are still indexed and ranked within 2 weeks maximum. You don’t need links (text or otherwise) to be indexed just a server that google will look at. I have built static sites with no links and the googlebot visits in 4 days.

    I have heard that google simply visits common hosting server boxes and pokes around looking for new stuff (to put it simply).

    Theis site with no link was probably automatically indexed. So I guess I am trying to say does google really index text url’s? Probably not in my option.

    Another test would be to set up a new domain and don’t send any links to it and see if google indexes it (I already know the answer to this, but don’t take my word for it!!)

22. Josh Spaulding
    24th February, 2009 at 12:40 am 

    @ Andy – As I mentioned, I doubt any authority is assigned, so that wouldn’t be an issue. We’re just talking about the URL being indexed, that’s all.

    @ Terry – Whether or not a link has anchor text doesn’t affect the authority passed. If authority were passed the site would still benefit form the authority. However, as I mentioned, I don’t think authority is even an issue here… we’re just talking about the URL being indexed, that’s all.

    @ Tim – I’ve been marketing online for over 5 years now and I’ve never seen a site get indexed with no links or at least a mention of the URL somewhere… Google doesn’t crawl through servers, that’s EXTREMELY illegal. You’re right though, another good test would be to see if you’re right… not even a mention. Why don’t you do that, take screenshots and if it gets indexed I’ll send my list t your blog post

23. Max Netten ree Airtime (1 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 3:13 am 

    I have a funny theory about nofollow links. I believe in a way they may become more valuable. The nofollow links are really what Google is looking for. People go after dofollow links but the websites getting nofollow links aren’t in it for the link they are in it for the conversation and that is really what Google is looking for.

    Kinda backwards thinking but Milan alluded to it also. As I understand it Google has said that nofollow links will not count against the page rank that you are trying to passon to certain pages in your website but they do not say they aren’t going to follow the nofollow links. I just comment on interesting blogs and I like yours Josh.
    Max

24. mark e (3 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 5:41 am 

    Josh,

    This article has uncanny timing. I have been writing bulk vending articles for Ezines and noticed several sites who used those articles were not making my hotlink active when they used the articles. This really helps to know at least I am getting some added benefit to the articles.
    Thanks,
    Mark

25. taking surveys
    24th February, 2009 at 7:20 am 

    I agree with Tim.

    The conclusion is flawed.

    Google crawls any site put on www, even if there are no links.

    In fact keeping pages away from indexing could be a problem at times.

    I presume it’s because every domain created gets listed somewhere and if that is found it gets indexed unless there is objectionable content on the domain.

    The test results are based on completely flawed conclusion to my mind.

    It is possible that the hypothesis is true but this test does not arrive at this conclusion.

26. Mark (4 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 7:31 am 

    @Josh, Tim, and Edward: Google doesn’t necessarily have to sift through random server data to find new unlinked pages. They could have an agreement with godaddy (or other registrar), or godaddy could maintain a publicly accessible list somewhere. Or heck, most people actually *like* their sites to be indexed, the domain name registrar might even submit the site for you.

    However, a random page on a server shouldn’t get indexed. I would be interested to see if it did get indexed with only unclickable links.

    @Milan: Good point. Why don’t you add it to Webmaster Tools and see if it shows your unclickable link?

27. Milan (3 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 9:16 am 

    @Mark, Google IS a top level domain registrar. They’re not selling domains though, they applied to become a registrar to have access to hidden whois data. I don’t think any registrar has access to a list to all new domains, so I don’t see why would that matter.
    I didn’t register through Goddady, I highly doubt my domain registrar would submit my domain name to a search engine.
    @Tim, sorry but I never had my site indexed just like that. In general, Google doesn’t care about sites without any backlinks at all! Their goal IS NOT to index the whole web (never was!), in fact, other search engines index much more than Google. Here is a quick proof: 140,000,000 for “loans” on Google, 891,000,000 for “loans” on Yahoo.
    Like I said, Google de-indexes sites that have no backlinks, based on an assumption that an “island” site has no value to users. As of today, my site is still in the index, not just that, new pages show up in the index.

    I agree there are some educated guesses in the study, but it’s close enough to a scientific study to have some value. I’ll keep on testing the issue (because it’s easy .

    Josh, thank you very much for helping with the study. Mark, thank you too.

28. Milan (3 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 9:33 am 

    @Max Netten, based on my experience (haven’t done real tests!) Google does care about the anchor text in the no-follow links.

29. Google Cash Detective (1 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 9:53 am 

    The study is interesting but I think has a major flaw:
    Just because the site got indexed it does not mean that it was these ‘non-links’.

    I have seen sites getting indexed with no links or any type of references at all!

    I don’t know how the spiders find a site that has no references of any kind, but my webserver logs show the Googlebot visiting even a brand-new site it should not have known about.

    Again, I have no explanation for that but I have seen it happen over and over again whenever I was working on a site and the Googlebot came even before I could do any link building (normally within 7-10 days after a domain is registered.)

    So I guess no matter where you hide Google will find you – with backlinks or without:-)

    John

30. Write Off Credit Card Debt
    24th February, 2009 at 1:51 pm 

    Well, well! I had previously thought that only if the connection was made and the link was live that the PR-juice would be validated.

    But come to think of it, Googlebot would recognise a reference to a URL even if it wasn’t written properly (therefore made live). I suppose this is a good thing as it counts the importance of web pages being referred to even though the person who wrote the link got it a bit wrong.

    So even though the link was not correct, the intention was, therefore praise is carried. It makes sense.

31. Tim
    25th February, 2009 at 7:22 am 

    @milan I am not necessarily saying you are wrong. I (and others) must just be lucky. I have sites with no links (not even plain text links) that make money for me and have continued to do so for a long time without being deindexed. Some of my sites with no links outrank others if you can believe that!

    As you can see others are also saying their sites without links are being indexed as well! Some of us just must be on the right hosting accounts

    My last static site without links was visited by the googlebot in less than a day!

32. Wawan (1 comments.)
    25th February, 2009 at 11:09 am 

    Hi Josh, I am surprised with above article. I never think that not clickable link counted as backlink by google. And you also put together a small PDF which explains the case-study and shows proof.
    Great Article Josh.

33. Josh Spaulding
    25th February, 2009 at 2:32 pm 

    @ Max – I believe they do follow nofollow links, they just don’t assign authority to them, which is what it’s all about. Thanks for the support, glad you like the blog.

    @ Mark e – Like I said, I don’t believe authority is being passed, they are just getting indexed, so I’m not sure that it helps.

    @ Taking – That’s an odd name, have you read my comment policy? I have at LEAST 30 domains that I’ve had sitting on my server for months, some years, none of them are indexed. Unfortunately you’re simply wrong… sorry

    @ Mark – It’s just not true, sorry I have at LEAST 30 domains that I’ve had sitting on my server for months, some years, none of them are indexed.

    @ John – I would love to see one of these sites… we’ve shown ours, may we see yours? I’ll even link to it in this post.

    @ Tim – I would love to see one of these sites… we’ve shown ours, may we see yours? I’ll even link to it in this post. If that’s the case then it’s an important addition to this case study because it would mean Google is assigning authority to these URL’s for some VERY ODD reason.

    My guess is that these “money making” sites were linked to without your knowledge. The URL in this case study was definitely not linked to anywhere.

34. Mark (4 comments.)
    25th February, 2009 at 11:23 pm 

    @Josh: Oh well. I tried. Was just a theory :p Would still depend on your registrar though, no? Or your host. Point is, your domain info is out there somewhere, who knows who has access to it.

    I know some of my stuff has gotten indexed really really quickly…I just don’t remember if I posted it anywhere. You make a single post about your domain on any forum…and google will find it.

35. taking surveys
    6th March, 2009 at 7:34 am 

    I am just asking a simple question:

    Have you ever found an Index/ page from a search engine listing?

    There are thousands.

    Do you mean somebody linked to that page?

    How did that page get indexed?

    Josh is completely wrong standing by this indexing theory.

    Or is it just to create a controversy!

36. Josh Spaulding
    6th March, 2009 at 3:06 pm 

    @ Taking – I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking here?

37. Allen Hollywood (5 comments.)
    19th March, 2009 at 12:50 am 

    I think this is relevant also in the value of nofollow links.

    I think in time they will be as valuable as dofollow. Goog may not count them against the page rank flow of the page they are on but nofollow links are actually more in the idea of what linksvalue is all about.

    The comments people are making in a conversation and getting nofollow links are in it to give comments. They are doing it to be part of the conversation instead of being after a link. If you use simple Google Logic then the nofollow link is maybe more valuable than a dofollow.

    Allen

38. Allen Hollywood (5 comments.)
    19th March, 2009 at 12:51 am 

    I hope my weird logic makes sense.
    Allen