I don't get it, need SEO clarification please

ok. so I recently ventured into trying to rank for certain keywords. In this process, I found out the number of links I had to beat. First step right? Now, I went around and did some Web. 2.0 articles with the anchor text for those keywords linking back to my money site. I also did some article marketing, and some blog commenting with the anchor text in the comment area.

I go and check my stats and I see only one of them has been found(did around 20), I do not know why the others are not being picked up yet. Is it because some of the article directories haven't been indexed yet? Is there some other way to find out how long it will take? Can I do something extra to make sure they get indexed? I also bookmarked these Web 2.0 posts.

Or am I just being impatient? How long should it take?

thanks for any help
Melanie

One answer could be that the pages haven't been indexed. Another could be that the links are "no follow". Another could be that Google's stats are not picking them up. You might check with Yahoo also for the backlink count. Trying to beat someone else's count isn't necessarily the best strategy because quality will beat quantity most of the time.

Hi Melanie,

Links will get indexed at different rates, depending on how often those pages/domains are crawled by various search engines. Where are you checking to see if the links are indexed or "showing"? Another issue is the database you're viewing, which may not have been updated to show the most recent links yet.

I would worry less about whether they have been "picked up yet" and just keep getting quality backlinks. Do guest posting, article marketing, create a Tumblr.com account and post there, share the links on Facebook & Twitter, etc. Just keep linking. :)

I'm not sure what you mean by "the number of backlinks I had to beat." There's not a certain number you have to have. Link building does not operate in a vacuum. Just because you get 20 links and your competition has 19 links doesn't mean it will improve your rankings. Linking is just one of many SEO factors. They all work in conjunction with one another.

Also, not all links you get will count. As Lynn said, you need "quality" links. Especially after Panda, links from article directories (which have never been the best quality links anyway) have seriously dropped in the eyes of Google. This is why a majority of the (including EzineArticles.com) took a major hit in their rankings. Sites that don't rank well don't have good PR which means they don't pass good link quality.

Don't count links. Concentrate on quality content that gets reprinted by authority sites that already rank high.

Like Karon said, there is no specific number of links you have to get. The most links does not always win. Even targeting high PR links, they are not always the same. A backlink from a page with a PR of 4 with 5 outgoing backlinks is much better than a backlink from a page with a PR of 4 with 200 outgoing backlinks.

Also, most backlink search engines do not show all the backlinks they have found to a website. Google especially. I have sites with thousands and thousands of backlinks, but Google says I have less than 30.

All you have to do is just waiting as it entirely depends on Google when to index them.

You can create a rss of your backlinks and this should quicken the indexing process.

Wow. Sorry, I didn't realize so many of you had posted excellent replies. You have cleared up a lot of things for me. I wish there weren't so many people saying different things when it comes to the best way to do this all. I was checking anchor text and links for competitiors in seomoz opensiteexplorer. Then I was determining how many to beat. But you are right, obviously where you post on authority sites that get indexed well will better determine the back link strength. I am also trying to come up with a strategy to follow to help clients of mine. I need to learn what works in order to get them ranking. I think I have a little better understanding now....I do see why a lot of people outsource this part though, it can be real confusing for an average blogger or new beginner.

Also, I was using SEMRush to see what I was ranking for keywords but it says that I don't have anything ranking for one of my sites that opensiteexplorer shows that I have anchor text for keywords(although not being searched for by the average person). I could see how this could throw people off too. Where they all gets their numbers from to figure out the calculations is what I am not sure of. Still need to figure out how it all works. Does anyone else have better suggestions for places to check rankings for keywords and see easier than SEMRush?

For checking your rankings, the best two desktop applications are SEO PowerSuite Rank Tracker or Advanced Web Ranking.

I use these two options for all of my SEO clients.

thanks Mike, I will look into those and see how they are.