Member Avatar for Missimin

I put a client's site on a link exchange and we have about 14 links back to her site but Google says there are no external links to the site. Does anyone know why Google isn't finding the links?

Thanks for your help.

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Short, practical checklist for the situation described (link exchange with ~14 links but Google reports none). and raised useful points; the steps below build on them with concrete diagnostics and fixes you can perform right away.

First, confirm the links are actually crawlable HTML anchors in the final rendered page (not injected by JavaScript, hidden in iframes, placed behind a login, or written as images with no linked anchor). Also check that the anchor points exactly to the canonical URL you care about (scheme and host matter). Example of the simplest, crawlable form:

<a href="https://www.example.com/">Example Site</a>

Next, inspect attributes and HTTP behavior that prevent credit: look for rel="nofollow"/rel="sponsored"/rel="ugc", meta robots tags (noindex) on the linking page, canonical tags on the linking page that point elsewhere, and any redirects or error responses from the linking page or the target. If the linking page redirects or returns 4xx/5xx, Google may not pass link value.

Use evidence rather than waiting: check the linking page is indexed and that Googlebot has crawled it (server logs or the URL Inspection / live fetch tools will show crawl date and the rendered HTML). Compare the pages you see in Search Console with third-party backlink services to spot differences. If Google has crawled the page and the anchor is visible in the rendered HTML but still not counted, check Search Console for manual actions or link-spam notices.

If these are reciprocal links between low-authority sites, they may be devalued. Options: get a single editorial, permanent mention on a reputable page; ask partners to move the link into editorial content; or remove low-quality reciprocal links. After fixes, request a recrawl of the linking page and monitor Search Console for changes.

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Member Avatar for seoprofessional

When were the links added?
Give Google some time to index the pages which contain your links-which point back to your site. After all the spiders do not index all sites and all pages everyday. Patience is a must with SEO. Besides this-check out the sites where your link has been added--Link text-Description, etc.

Regards
Sunil Punjabi

Edited by Dani because: Plug snipped
Member Avatar for Missimin

Thank you for your reply.

Your information to check the description is very helpful.

Member Avatar for jreseo

First, the Google link: command only shows a subset of links, and usually only the best quality links. If that is what you are using, I'd suggest you look at the Yahoo linkdomain: command results, and also sign up for Google Webmaster tools and look at the link lists within that tool -- those are much more comprehensive and accurate than the Google link: command.

Second, if these are really link exchanges, Google may just ignore the links, as reciprocal (and other artificial) links are a game that Google discounts heavily, especially when the sites are not relevant.

Rather than link exchanges, focus on "real" link building with good content, online PR and leveraging your community, partners, etc.

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