link vs. links

[janeth]

Why does
link:www.geeksonsteroids.com
Show different from
links:www.geeksonsteroids.com
show different from
links:http://www.geeksonsteroids.com
shows different from
links: www.geeksonsteroids.com
is differnet from
link: www.geeksonsteroids.com

what is the deal with that and which one is right?

[minstrel]

link:yoursite.com
and
links:yoursite.com
also give different results from all of the above

[minstrel]

But it's not just Google: try "link:" vs. "links:" and the other combinations on Alta Vista and Allthe Web.

Google doesn't list very many links when queried:

for my site -
Google 19
AltaVista 131
AlltheWeb 99

And by the way, I don't think any of those are accurate so what does any of it mean?

[janeth]

Hi minstrel,

I thought I was loosing teh rest of my mind the topics where moving all over the place

[minstrel]

Hi minstrel, I thought I was losing the rest of my mind the topics where moving all over the place
Just my version of Google Dance :-)

Sorry to confuse you - we had about 4 different topics going on in that thread and even I was getting confused...

[janeth]

I guess cbp and rlrouse have gone to bed. What a waste of good time. But I guess it is part of getting old.

This is like Christmass you wake up in the morning and have no idea where Google has put your site.

I guess everyones pr will be different tomorrow. I do hope I go to a pr6

[minstrel]

I guess cbp and rlrouse have gone to bed. What a waste of good time. But I guess it is part of getting old.
"Something said... not good... what was it? time? no, that's okay... OLD! she called you old!" - modified from a Homer Simpson quote

...and with that, goodnight :-)

[rlrouse]

...But I guess it is part of getting old.

Gee thanks, Janeth! And to think that I considered you a friend... (Just kidding, no offense taken.)

[janeth]

I was on my way to bed when I wrote that

[janeth]

Ok which one gives the number Google goes by?

link:www.geeksonsteroids.com
Show different from
links:www.geeksonsteroids.com
show different from
links:http://www.geeksonsteroids.com
shows different from
links: www.geeksonsteroids.com
is differnet from
link: www.geeksonsteroids.com

[Conficio]

Hi Janeth,
I think
the form link:..... does what you expect
http://www.google.com/help/features.html#link

I do not see any difference with "http://..." or w/o.

The search for links:..... does ssearch for "links ...." so for both search terms.

See in the blue bar for these results for the difference:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=link%3Awww.google.com&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=links%3Awww.google.com&btnG=Google+Search

Does that solve the mystery?

Happy searching
K<o>

[janeth]

If you put a space after link you get something different

link:www
link: www

[Conficio]

Janeth,
you are right! It behaves like links:...

Compare the two blue bars of my earlier post. Only the link:... is a special response with no "found keywords" in the blue bar, but the link-count in the google database for the given URL. Everything else searches for the keywords "link:", "links:", etc. Also look at the results found. They usually contain the keywords right in the summary (very obvious in the case of "links:").

Also have a look at a cached page from the results. In the real link-count this should be meaningless, as one can't highlight the keywords in the nice google colors. And if you click on it, google shows it w/o the coloration.

I hope that helps.

K<o>