Hello, I was wondering if someone could help me.  I am trying to
optimize our website www.cypressindustries.com, and know that the
number of sites linking to yours is an important factor.  I also know
our site has some links linking to it.  But when I go to Google and
hit backwards links, none show up.  Our partner company
www.layerone.com has a ton of backward links.  Many of them are from
their own site even.  We had the same web designer do both sites.

The Cypress site did just get a rev, so does it take some time for the
backward links to register with Google?  What is the best way to
ensure that
these backwards links will show up?

Greetings, cypresstom!

While Google is pretty protective of the algorithms they use to
determine Page Rank as well as the other aspects of their Search
Engine, questions like this are the subject of much research and
speculation by webmasters.
 
Because of Google's secrecy, it is not known for absolute certain, but
the general consensus among webmasters is that Google only indexes
backward links for a page if IT has a Page Rank higher than 3, and
only indexes the backward links that are coming FROM pages with a Rank
higher than 3.
 
From Senior Forum Member "Beachboy" at WebmasterWorld: 
"Your index page is PR3, Google won't show any inbound links unless
the page you're doing the query on is PR4 or greater."
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/4784.htm?highlight=inbound+links+higher
 
From Senior Forum Member "Birdman" at WebmasterWorld: 
"It is thought that Google only shows backlinks from pages that have a
pr4 or higher."
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/7309.htm?highlight=inbound+links+higher


Do you have the Google Toolbar installed in your browser? If not, I
recommend that you do so. You can download it here:
http://toolbar.google.com 
(The toolbar requires Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP and
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or later.)
 
If you call up your website with the Toolbar visible in your browser
window, it will show your "Page Rank" on a scale from 0 to 10. The
Page Rank for your home page is 3.

A Google Search on
www.cypressindustries.com site:cypressindustries.com
://www.google.com/search?q=www.cypressindustries.com+site:cypressindustries.com+&num=100&filter=0
reveals that Google has indexed 24 of your pages. They have the Page
Ranks of:
3,3,3,2,2,4,3,3,3,2,2,3,3,3,X,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3

[X - www.cypressindustries.com/products/assembly.html
This link apparently leads to a non-existent page. I could not find a
link to it on your site, so you don't need to worry about it (although
you might want to submit this link to be crawled by the Googlebot, so
that it will be removed from the index).]

So, you are currently being well-crawled by the Googlebot, and you
have a respectable Page Rank.

The best way to improve your Page Rank is by contacting websites with
***related*** themes which have a Page Rank of 3 or higher, and ask
them if they would be willing to put a link to your site on theirs in
exchange for you putting a link to their site on yours. Having sites
ranked 3 or higher linking to yours is a VERY important factor in your
Page Rank.

A Google Search on
www.cypressindustries.com -site:cypressindustries.com
://www.google.com/search?q=www.cypressindustries.com+-site:cypressindustries.com+&num=100&filter=0
reveals that Google has indexed 6 other pages that contain your URL,
and their Page Ranks are
4,3,1,1,0,X <-- dead link

You've got one referring site with a Page Rank of 4; you just need to
add some more. You will want to be sure to find "quality" sites
related to your business line, rather than just any type of site that
will be willing to post a link to yours.

**** NOTE: Be sure to AVOID using sites and website "positioning"
services such as http://www.linkstoyou.com and WebPositionGold, which
are considered "link farms", and which could get your website banned
from Google entirely.


For more information on how Page Ranking works, I encourage you to
read the following excellent papers:
 
"Google's PageRank Explained and how to make the most of it" by Phil
Craven on WebWorkshop.com:
http://webworkshop.net/pagerank.html 
 
"The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works" by Ian Rogers, IPR
Computing Ltd. ian@iprcom.com (Last edited: 16th May 2002):
http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/index.html 
 

Before Rating my Answer, if you have any questions about this
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will be
glad to see what I can do for you.
  
Best Wishes on getting your website Ranking high, with lots of search
hits!
  
Regards,  
  
aceresearcher

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 09 Apr 2003 14:59 PDT

cypresstom,

I also meant to suggest to you that you submit your site to be listed
in the DMOZ ODP (Directory Mozilla - Open Directory Project) at
http://www.dmoz.org .
There are two reasons for this:
 
1) Because DMOZ is humanly edited (each URL is personally checked out
for legitimacy before being added to the Directory), a lot of crap
that makes it into Search Engine Results never makes it into DMOZ. For
this reason, many people rely heavily on the ODP as a guide to quality
websites, so you really want to be listed in it.
 
2) Also for that reason, the Googlebot uses (among other things) the
ODP as a kind of "checklist" for what sites to crawl when it indexes
the web. So if you can get listed in the ODP, your chances of being
indexed -- and of obtaining a high Google Page Rank -- are GREATLY
increased.
  
My guess as to where you would choose to be submitted for cataloging
would be:
     Business: Electronics and Electrical: Wiring and Accessories  
http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/add.cgi?where=Business/Electronics_and_Electrical/Wiring_and_Accessories

However, you may want to check out the available categories on this
page to select the one that you feel best describes your business:
http://dmoz.org/Business/Electronics_and_Electrical

Once you have chosen a category, click on it, then click on the "add
URL" hyperlink in the upper right-hand corner; that will auto-fill the
category field for you. Submit ONLY your home page URL, ONLY once;
otherwise DMOZ may think that you are spamming them and ban your
website from their directory.
 
A listing on a DMOZ page should provide you with another site which
links to yours, and it will probably have a Page Rank of 5 or higher.

I hope that this additional information assists you in improving your
Page Rank and your placement in Google Search results!

ace

---

Request for Answer Clarification by cypresstom-ga on 09 Apr 2003 15:13 PDT

Hello Ace,  this helps quite a bit!  Thank you very much.  I have a
couple minor questions maybe you could clear up for me.
1.  I registered on business.com who's ranking is like an 8.  But, the
page I appear on under connectors is listed as a 2.  Does this help me
as the overall site is ranked highly, or must I be on a page of that
site with a higher ranking.

2.  I also submitted to dmoz a couple of days ago, and to several
others.  Does it take until the next ranking cycle for Google to list
it as a backwards link?

3.  Do you know of any other high ranking website listing sites that
are not too expensive?

I have the Google toolbar and use it quite a bit thank you.  I think
our assembly page was removed last week, that's why it was
nonexistent.  Thanks again for all of the valuable information and
links!!
Best Regards,
CypressTom

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 09 Apr 2003 19:00 PDT

CypressTom,

Thank you for the excellent rating; I am delighted that you are happy
with your Answer!

<< I registered on business.com who's ranking is like an 8.  But, the
page I appear on under connectors is listed as a 2.  Does this help me
as the overall site is ranked highly, or must I be on a page of that
site with a higher ranking. >>

The ranking that counts toward your page is the ranking on the page
that contains your URL.


<< I also submitted to dmoz a couple of days ago, and to several
others.  Does it take until the next ranking cycle for Google to list
it as a backwards link? >>

From DMOZ' "How to add a site to the Open Directory":
"An ODP editor will review your submission to determine whether to
include it in the directory.  Depending on factors such as the volume
of submissions to the particular category, it may take several weeks
or more before your submission is reviewed.  Please only submit a URL
to the Open Directory once.  Again, multiple submissions of the same
or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those
and all affiliated sites.  Disguising your submission and submitting
the same URL more than once is not permitted.  If a site you submitted
has not been listed after three weeks, you may submit it again or you
may send an e-mail to an editor of the category for which the site was
submitted."
http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

Bear in mind that once your site becomes listed on a page in DMOZ, it
may take an additional 4-6 weeks OR MORE for that page to be reindexed
by Google, thus transferring some of the DMOZ' Rating Charm to your
site. In addition, if you still don't have 3 or more sites with Page
Rank of 4 or higher, the  link:cypressindustries.com functionality is
still not going to show any links for your site.


<< Do you know of any other high ranking website listing sites that
are not too expensive? >>

In addition to Google and DMOZ, you can add your URL to the following
highly-used Search Engines:

 HotBot:   
http://ldbreg.lycos.com/cgi-bin/mayaLogin?m_PR=29&m_CBURL=http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/lite?step1.asp
 
  AllTheWeb:   
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php   
 
  AltaVista:   
http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new   
 
  Zeal (LookSmart/MSN free submission w/free registration)   
http://www.zeal.com/users/register.jhtml   


Because I don't know your business well, you are in the best position
to find good pages to request for links. You can do this by Googling
on keywords related to your business, then examine those sites that
come up in the first 10 or 20 results.

Bear in mind that a page's Page Rank is split amongst the pages which
are linked to that page; if a page has a PR of 8, but it contains 100
links, the benefit to each of those 100 pages is small. However, a
page with a PR of 4 or 5, which contains your link and only one or two
others, WILL benefit your page ranking greatly. Thus, you want to get
links on quality, one-of-a-kind pages on high-content sites related to
your business line, rather than on pages with huge lists of links to
other sites.

For more (and I mean a LOT more!) in-depth information on how Page
Rank works, see Chris Riding's paper "PageRank Uncovered" on the
Search Engine Optimization Support Forums website:
a page of explanation and examples:
http://www.supportforums.org/pagerank
"PageRank Uncovered" by Chris Ridings
http://www.supportforums.org/PageRank.pdf

I hope that the additional information that I have provided gives you
exactly what you needed!

Regards,

ace

Excellent answers!  Much more than I expected and it helped me out a great deal!