Link Analysis-Moz analytics

[Rebeca1]

Good afternoon, I relay hope someone can help me out with this report

In link analysis I have viewed inbound links where I see many links linking to our site but among them I see also many times our site listed with various anchor text. How is this possible. Our site is linking to our site or what? It realy does not make sense to me. Can somebody explain me this please?

[crackingmedia]

Hi Iris

Is it in the anchor text column that you can see the web address of your site?

If so, that is normal if the anchor text of the link and the URL link are the same. So on the list of inbound links it is not your site linking to your site, but the site in the column to the left that is linking to your site.

I have just had a look at your site in Moz's Open Site Explorer and I see the same. I have attached a screenshot so you can see.

The first column shows an inbound link from: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-is-blurring-images

The second column shows that the anchor text of the inbound link is: http://villasdiani.com which just so happens to link to http://villasdiani.com

A screenshot of the site the inbound link is coming from is also attached. It is cropped to show the blog post that contains the inbound link to your site and you can see that the anchor text is the same as your website address.

Does that make sense?

Peter

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[Rebeca1]

Thank you very much Peter, you are really great helping me with this.

Unfortunately it is not the anchor text I mean:-(  I have attached the screen shot.

Thank you very much

Iris

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[crackingmedia]

Hi Iris

OK, I think I can see what you mean. About 20 lines down there is a block of inbound links showing as coming from your domain. Is that what you mean?

It's a good question. I think this is to do with the fact that you use absolute URLs in the links on your website and not relative URLs.

An absolute URL to a page is like this: www.mydomain.com/mypage.html whereas a relative URL is like this /mypage.html

If you use absolute URLs to link internally then because they have the full path including the domain then I think that is being seen as an inbound link, whereas if you use relative URLs that don't include the domain they are not seen as inbound.

The report shows inbound links and not **internal **links so there is a subtle difference. If you run the same report on your site using Open Site Explorer that provides a filter which allows you to see inbound links that are only external or only internal. Using these filters hides the block of links you are seeing when filtering external only and shows them when filtering internal only.

See here: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links.html?page=1&site=villasdiani.com

I need someone to verify this but I think this is the reason.

Peter

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Iris,

Those look like internal links on your website.

For example, on your homepage you have a navigation link that links to "Kenya News", so this shows up in your link report.

Does that make sense? So in a way, you are correct - your site is linking to your site. These links count, so they are reported in your crawl.

[Rebeca1]

Hallo Cyrus,

Thank you very much for your reply. I m not sure if I am realy getting this. I simply do not understand how can http://villasdiani.com/ link to http://villasdini.com/ with anchor text Kenya News.

The way I understand it, it is http://villasdiani.com/ linking to http://villasdiani.com/kenya-news/ with anchor text Kenya News

If it would be that way as you have explained there woudl have to be much more such links.

I also do not have there any link with anchor text Galu beach or Mombasa as stated there.

I am not very good in this, but Sorry,  I do not think you are correct

[Cyrus-Shepard]

The report you showed us shows all links to the root domain htt://villasdiani.com, so this includes ALL links to the domain. Does that make sense?

If you want, you can view links just to the the individual URL http://villasdiani.com by using the filters in Open Site Explorer

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fvillasdiani.com%2F+

The whole thing can be a little confusing at first. Let me know if I can offer any further clarification.

Cheers.

[Rebeca1]

Hallo Cyrus,

Thank you very much for your reply and I apologize for coming so late back. I was waiting for a new crawl report so as I can flood you with more stupid question. I am very sorry about it, but I am trying to make somehow sense out of it, but I can't:-(

1, In crawl report I see on the bottom listed pages with issues, as you can see in the image A, when I go to view the issues, it opens the report with issue as you can see in the image B. I realy do not understand why is it saying there about canonical, I was sure we have sorted out the canonical things on our site the proper way for all pages or am I wrong and the crawl is correct and we realy do not specify the canonical sites for pages listed by moz crawl?

2, When I open in Link analysis and look on Top Page by PA, on a fifth position is listed a site with link including ?db. This is not my site, I have never created such page, how is this possible that moz crawl stats this as my fifth to page? You may view the report in Image C

3, As regarding of inbound links in moz crawl it shows that villasdiani.com is linked to villasdiani.com whit this anchor text: (IMG ALT) Kenya Villa Rentals on the Top in Africa or (IMG ALT) Choosing the Best Time to Visit Kenya, I do not have any such link there, as well as no link with anchor text Lamu Island as you can view in the image D. I am sorry but I am realy afraid that the moz crawl is not correct and I am wasting 2 weeks to to figure this out in absolute frustration. Also all the links which are stated here with anchor text Raul were removed over a month ago, I just confirmed that with a person who did i.

I am very sorry for this long message but I am realy very much frustrated of it:-(

All the best

Iris

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[Rebeca1]

Hallo Peter,

Thank you very much for your reply. I am still frustrated with the crawl reports:-(

What do you mean that I use absolute URLs in the links on my website and not relative URLs?

I guess that my site is set to have canonical http://villasdiani.com and all my internal linking are done also like this examples: http://villasdiani.com/rent/beach-villas, or http://villasdiani.com/category/kenya-news and etc. I am not using www version for nothing.

Thank you very much,

Iris

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Iris,

Sorry for the frustration. Some of this can be a little hard to grasp at first. And in truth, it may be this isn't the right product for you - especially if you're not finding value.

Regardless, let me go over these issues one at a time.

1. Canonical - This simply means you have a canonical tag on the page. It's not a high priority, or even a medium or low priority issue. It's simply a notice so that you know it's there (in case it's not suppose to be).

In this case it looks like the tag exist as it should, so there's nothing to worry about.

2. http://villasdiani.com/?db

If you click that link you can see the page resolves, and because it's listed in the report it means our crawlers are finding it linked to (probably by a malignant link on your site - or sometimes a bit of javascript)

In this case it does have a proper canoncial tag on it, so all is good. Was the canonical tag added recently? I am surprised that our crawlers would report it as a separate page. But if it was added recently it might make sense.

3. This one's a bit more of a myster. If you look at this page: http://villasdiani.com/category/kenya-news/ The first image in the upper left hand corner has the alt text "Kenya Villa Rentals on the Top in Africa"

The only problem is the report says the link is on the homepage, and not this internal page.

If this was changed in the past month it may explain it, because we are reading the link report (which is updated about once a month) and not the crawl report (which is updated weekly). If you think there is an error in either of these reports we could ask the help team for assistance. They're usually very good at digging into technical problems.

Regardless, your site is looking very healthy.

[Rebeca1]

Thank you very much Cyrus million times for all your time and help.

I am very happy to tell that I understand now what you mean with the canonical. The link with Kenya news was on the homepage and it can be that around a month I have remove it from there, so that will be the case I guess.

My only worry is that link with?db. I realy do not understand how somebody can create such link which counts as one of my site links and even you click on it and it opens my site. I have never created that page with db.

Please tell me what you mean by linked by malignant link or javascript? How that person could possibly do this? I believe he wanted to harm my site as we are his competition.

Thank you very much Cyrus!

Iris

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Iris,

Let me answer this way. Most websites have strange URLs that are generated by extra bits of code, and they are usually both harmless and difficult to hide.

There are methods how you can go about rooting that page out, but they can be fairly complicated, but the simple answer is I wouldn't worry about it. Because of the canonical tag on the page, it's already doing what it should and passing all link equity to the homepage. And Google doesn't have the ?db page in it's index, so it's really nothing to worry about.

Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.

[Rebeca1]

Thank you so much Cyrus and sunny greetings from Diani beach! If you have heard some huge crash that was the stone from my shoulders. I will ignore the weird link.

Thank you very much and have good day!

All the best

Iris