By Scott Goodyear
Talking to a WebPosition customer this morning, they were wondering why a Google link: search would show that they had 4,000+ links pointing to their site when WebPosition was showing only 26 links from the “same” search. A space, as well as other things, can make all the difference in how you search and what Google returns from your search.
A Space Makes A Difference
In the customer’s case, and using Apple.com as a generic example, they had been searching in their web browser like this:
link: www.apple.com
When this search is performed, Google looks both for the word “link” and the second word, the domain name. This turns the search into a normal keywords search rather than invoking some of Google’s advanced search and filtering functions. You’ll notice that Google even highlights the “words” in the search results:
This is the proper way to do a link search at Google:
link:www.apple.com
Notice that while there may be fewer pages listed as linking back, this is also using Google’s link command rather than a normal search.
Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Spacing