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Does Google count backlinks from non-indexed pages?

by FlashDriveDT
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Does google recognize backlinks from pages it doesn't index? In other words, will a backlink count just as long as Google crawls the page? A lot of social profiles with backlinks don't seem to get indexed but as there are links to the profile on the community, Google has no reason not to crawl them (unless the robots.txt of the site disallows profile or members crawling, but this is hardly ever the case). I'm sure there are other type of backlink pages where Google may crawl but not index so I'm really curious about this question.
#backlinks #count #google #nonindexed #pages
  • Profile picture of the author pepperall12
    Dear FlashDriveDT,
    Why would you want to get a link from a page that is not indexed?
    The whole value of a link is to let the engine know that you have a "relationship" to a site that the engine respects (ranks well).
    Analogically, in real life, you would not expect the person A be impressed by you knowing the person B if the person A knows nothing about the person B, would you?
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      Originally Posted by pepperall12 View Post

      Dear FlashDriveDT,
      Why would you want to get a link from a page that is not indexed?
      Well dear Pepperall,
      I don't want to. But it appears that sometimes Google just doesn't pick up a page where a backlink sits. That's pretty much real life with Google.

      The whole value of a link is to let the engine know that you have a "relationship" to a site that the engine respects (ranks well).
      Analogically, in real life, you would not expect the person A be impressed by you knowing the person B if the person A knows nothing about the person B, would you?
      Relationship sounds great but then how come Google credits one way links? That's real life too.

      While I appreciate your input pepperall, it left my question unanswered. The question is: Does Google count backlinks wherever it crawls vs. whatever it indexes? I'm honestly curious, not because I want to use some black hat method or whatever. I just want to know how much effort I need to put into getting my social profiles indexed or if that doesn't actually matter.
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      • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
        Will we really know what google counts as a backlink?

        Googles webmaster tools? Totally innacurate. Search Googles database index and guess at what they're using? Backlink checking tools? Where are they accumulating their data from - googles index and yahoo site explorer?

        The safe assumption [ assume is pretty much most of what we can do with Google Search anyhow ] that if the page isnt indexed, they are NOT seeing your backlink and you are NOT getting credit for it.

        Ive come to grips with using Yahoo site explorer almost exclusively, and I also convert the URL of the sites I track in that tool to an RSS Feed, Ping them and Bookmark them. Hoping that if Yahoo finds them then the other bots can come crawl those Yahoo Site Explorer URLs and get to all of mine [ well the first 1,000 of them anyhow ]

        How much effort to expend getting N/A PR profile pages indexed? I initially spent much effort getting a system organized to do it. Its been good to me, and I think its worth it. But then I dont buy all the - get relevant only links, NOR the only good links worth having are from inner pages on a site with hte a decent PR home page. A good link is one that gets seen by google and counted. The more the better.

        When I place a backlink on a profile page or a blog post or a forum or a photo comment or a video comment ... etc ... I ping the url, convert the pages url to RSS ... and I look for sites that have RSS Feed subscribe buttons on the pages where the backlink resides ... Ping, Bookmark, Aggregate. Rinse Repeat ...

        Automation of that process is key.
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        • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
          Originally Posted by 4morereferrals View Post

          ... and I look for sites that have RSS Feed subscribe buttons on the pages where the backlink resides ... Ping, Bookmark, Aggregate. Rinse Repeat ...
          Why is the RSS subscribe button relevant? Wouldn't these RSS buttons only be on the home page of a site? Kinda hard to get your link there..

          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

          I seem to have recalled Matt Cutts discussing this once and he indicated that the backlink would pass no link juice if it there was a nofollow attribute but I don't recall ever hearing of a non-indexed page helping anyone rank for a keyword.
          Well, the theory is that after Google crawled a page, saw the backlink(s), but decides against indexing for whatever reason, it still gives credit for the link(s). It's a long shot, but it's possible...?

          Originally Posted by tguillea View Post

          I think the problem is there are no non-indexed pages that Google crawls... either it crawls it and it is indexed or it doesn't and it is not.
          I seriously doubt that. Google crawls many pages that it doesn't index because it's spammy, duplicate truplicate content, simply put: it's of no value (to Google) and hence doesn't get indexed. It can only decide that after it crawled a page/site. Profile pages may fall into this category from what I have experienced, because the strange thing is that e.g. while my username in relation to the site shows up in google because of a comment or whatever or because of a photos page, the profile itself is not indexed. It makes no sense seeing as these traces are links to the profile page, that Google wouldn't pick up the profile too. So apparently, there's some weird algorithm going on and the issue remains if it crawled the profile since it obviously saw the link to it, but decided against indexing. Yet counted the backlinks...

          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

          The only way the Googlebot will be able to see a noindex meta tag is after they have crawled the page.

          There is another meta tag, "nofollow", that tells the bot to not follow links on a page. But, if there are any links to a page that aren't nofollow then that page will get crawled (Unless blocked by Robots.txt) and indexed unless the noindex meta tag is present.
          Quite right. That's what baffles me so as some of these profile URLs are neither robots.txt blocked nor is there any nofollow involved. So maybe there's some noindex command embedded in the html or javascript? There should be no good reason for that though, unless the profile is deemed to spammy by the webmaster. But then it would be easier to just delete the profile. So I'm thinking Google has become a lot pickier as to what ends up in the index and what doesn't.
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          • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
            Quote:
            Originally Posted by 4morereferrals
            ... and I look for sites that have RSS Feed subscribe buttons on the pages where the backlink resides ... Ping, Bookmark, Aggregate. Rinse Repeat ...

            Why is the RSS subscribe button relevant? Wouldn't these RSS buttons only be on the home page of a site? Kinda hard to get your link there..
            RSS Feed aggregation is a great way to get sites noticed and crawled.

            Imagine a list of 35,000 community sites where the users profile page has rss feed subscribe buttons ... that are a feed of every activity of a user. Every blog post, every photo, every video upload, every forum post, every update to the profile page ... gets sent thru the feed and updates.

            Feedage.com and Feedagg.com are great for getting things found/indexed by google.

            I tested this by using a specific and very unique username at several sites [ 50 sites]. I set up a google alert to advise me when google found the user name on the profile pages.

            I placed links in hte profiles as normal ... bookmarked, jumptagged, and grabbed the rss feed urls off the profile pages and put them in technorati as a favorite BLOG, feedage.com and feedagg.com ... used pingomatic to ping them as well [ I have some automated scripts to assist with this ]

            Kept an eye on my google alerts .. worked a treat. Some were days, some were weeks, some were hrs. Some were no shows ... All in all - very effective for me. YMMV.

            RSS is a great tool for backlinking etc ...
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          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Originally Posted by FlashDriveDT View Post

            Quite right. That's what baffles me so as some of these profile URLs are neither robots.txt blocked nor is there any nofollow involved. So maybe there's some noindex command embedded in the html or javascript? There should be no good reason for that though, unless the profile is deemed to spammy by the webmaster. But then it would be easier to just delete the profile. So I'm thinking Google has become a lot pickier as to what ends up in the index and what doesn't.
            Hi FlashDriveDT,

            Often profile pages are only available to registered users, in other cases they are behind a search function or just buried way too deep. The search engine bots will only crawl a certain depth and no further. You can rectify this by getting a few indexed backlinks to your profile page.

            Your profile page doesn't have any link juice except from where other pages are linking to it. Avoid building profile pages on sites that have very few profiles indexed, that's an indicator that you may have trouble getting your own profile indexed.

            It' generally helps if you are an active contributor to a website because your contributions will frequently link to your profile. So if you create a profile and never contribute to the websites contents you wont have any pages on that site pointing to your profile.
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Hi FlashDriveDT,

        Only Google could say for sure, but I think that you could safely assume that if their bot hasn't spidered the page, then they are unaware of the link. Technically they could have spidered it and not indexed the profile. I seem to have recalled Matt Cutts discussing this once and he indicated that the backlink would pass no link juice if it there was a nofollow attribute but I don't recall ever hearing of a non-indexed page helping anyone rank for a keyword.
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  • Profile picture of the author warrich
    Google never count backlinks from non indexed pages
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  • Profile picture of the author tguillea
    I think the problem is there are no non-indexed pages that Google crawls... either it crawls it and it is indexed or it doesn't and it is not.
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by tguillea View Post

      I think the problem is there are no non-indexed pages that Google crawls... either it crawls it and it is indexed or it doesn't and it is not.
      Hi tguillea,

      Really? What about the noindex meta tag? :confused:
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      • Profile picture of the author tguillea
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Hi tguillea,

        Really? What about the noindex meta tag? :confused:

        ... I thought noindex means it won't crawl it either?
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        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by tguillea View Post


          ... I thought noindex means it won't crawl it either?
          Hi tguillea,

          The only way the Googlebot will be able to see a noindex meta tag is after they have crawled the page.

          There is another meta tag, "nofollow", that tells the bot to not follow links on a page. But, if there are any links to a page that aren't nofollow then that page will get crawled (Unless blocked by Robots.txt) and indexed unless the noindex meta tag is present.
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        • Profile picture of the author Webnauts
          Google crawls pages with a noindex meta tag or with a robots.txt noindex directive. And noindex labeled pages accumulate PR.

          The only ways you can hinder Google to crawl a page is with the robots.txt disallow directive or implementing a user authentication via htaccess.

          If a page is disallowed with robots.txt, Google still may show up a snippet of the pages in their search results, because a link to a disallowed page can transfer PageRank.
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