by dcz » Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:36 pm
Well, I am not sure we can conclude from this about the algorithm.
Because what the Search Engines are showing us could be a little bit different from what they deal with when building up the search results.
Let me explain, I do think Google knows for most of a web site's backlinks, just because it's the bigger DateBase. It's almost for sure Google did visit the pages where the other search engines counted a backlink and Google didn't.
So this mean Google is dealing with both the "official" and the real backlinks list all the time. That what can explain how web site do obtain better results in the search results before the new very good backlink list is actually taken into account by Google.
MSN, if we compare, is usually returning less backlinks than Yahoo does for the same query, and the result is too important to just be due to differences in spidering.
What I think is at least both Google and MSN are not returning all the known backlinks (coming from every cached page they have listed), Google being more strict and using a step by step update when MSN seem to do it on a regular basis.
Yahoo seems to return the number of all known backlinks, but won't actually show them all if you try to go up to the last page, kind of like if the lasting ones where treated as less important.
In the end, all we can say is they all apply some filter when it come to dealing with backlinks. Not at the same time or place, but still.
So I do think they all work on fighting against spam SEO, but with different methods and of course results.
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