Why do my inbound links hardly ever show up?

[TomFrearson]

I'm sure this question has been asked before but I couldn't quite find the answer I was looking for.

Basically, I'm trying to understand why the inbound links I've created hardly ever show up in Webmaster Tools or Open Site Explorer, when other (relatively new) sites have hundreds of them.

For example, I'm building a small niche site for which I have written all original content; some product reviews, some more general articles. Then I have rewritten the articles and posted them on popular Web2.0 sites to find human traffic as well as building authority through the links. I've linked some of the smaller sites together to form a wheel for additional authority.

I've pinged the off-site articles and some of them have been indexed but the links don't show up in, even after a couple of months. I've checked the articles for duplication, just in case, and they're all 80-90% unique, or more.

I've done similar things for other small sites and the links sometimes show up, but it takes 4-6 months which seems ridiculous.

It's frustrating when I'm doing everything by the book (as far as I'm aware) and getting nowhere in the SERP's, while other sites have hundreds of links from spam blogs with poor quality, unrelated content and are sitting on page 1.

I've also bookmarked the off-site articles and submitted the RSS feed where appropriate. My intention was to continue adding content on and off site but it just seems pointless if it never has any value.

I just don't know what else I'm supposed to do. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

The URL of the site I'm currently working on is www.impact-wrench-reviews.com.

Thanks, Tom.

[AlanMosley]

Matt Cutts has stated many times that article sites are of no value. so maby they dont add them to the list in GWMT.

These lists are not complete for anyone, Bing, Google or SEOMoz are not complete lists.

[Thommas]

Hi Tom

GWMT are showing only a very small portion of your links, the OSE does a much better job but it is not showing all of your links either.  I would suggest you compliment OSE with Majestic to get a better picture.

[TomFrearson]

Thank you both for your input. I forgot to mention that GWMT did actually show links from my Wordpress.com blog but they disappeared. This may be because I made some changes to the site based on the SEOmoz On-Page Analysis, which broke one of the links, so they may show up again in time. It just seems strange that my Blogger links haven't shown up for example, yet they have for my other sites.

The most frustrating thing is that many people are using low quality blog networks to gain links (which I can understand since it appears to work so well) which makes it very difficult to compete through an organic marketing process.

Many of the sites that significantly outrank me have nothing but duplicate content and links from blog networks. I don't see how this is delivering the best user experience.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for posting about this important issue. Building links is hard work, and I'm sure this is incredibly frustrating to you.

The primary reason links don't show up - either in Linkscape or WMT - is that they are built on pages that don't get crawled. This means that the link is built on a page that doesn't have many links itself pointing to it.

For example, a link posted on the New York Times will be crawled and indexed very fast. But a link posted on an obscure article submission site may never be crawled. Additionally, links like these don't count for very much, even when they are crawled.

As you mentioned, often times you'll see links from low quality, spammy link networks in your competitors backlink profile. I know how frustrating this is! But don't be discouraged, because often these links pass no real value, and Google is really cracking down on these (at least some... finally)

When link building, pay close attention to the link metrics of the site where you want to get a link from. Does the page have good Domain and Page Authority? Is it indexed by Google? When was the last time Google crawled the page? Does it have good MozTrust? Does the domain link out to spammy sites? (hopefully no) These are all questions you should be asking when building links.

The reality is, link building takes practice and determination, and requires thinking outside the box. But if you practice enough and mix in a bit of creativity and persistence, it will pay off.

Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO!

[TomFrearson]

Hi Cyrus,

Thank you for your response.

It certainly is frustrating and I think it has been particularly difficult for newbies this year due to the changes in the behaviour of the SE's. Having said that, I'm glad things are moving the right direction, albeit slowly.

This particular site is more of a side project for me so perhaps the lack of activity has meant things not being crawled, as you suggest. It just seems strange that the pages are indexed but the links aren't recorded. And I'm particularly perplexed by the sudden disappearance of links from my WordPress.com blog.

Incidentally, GWT seems to show more links than any other tools. OSE and MSE hardly show any at all. In fact, the only links that show up consistently are from my own personal site, which is just a business card with no activity or authority whatsoever. Very odd.

As an engineer, when things don't make sense and can't be reasoned by logic or science, it's very difficult to move forward. Perhaps I should leave the SEO to somebody else...

Anyway, thanks again for your input. I will have to get creative because I'm not keen on churning out crap just to compete with other people doing the same, whether it works or not.