Does Google count these text urls as actual links? (even though they are not active, just read only)

I don't think they are counted as "actual links" but they may count as a "reference". Many researchers will utilize this type of addressing for their audience so that they can print documents and have the link references handy. I see it day in and day out.

In the reference you provided, I'd be suspicious about that one. I have a feeling that the "reference" was once an "actual link" and then turned to a "reference" after it served its purpose. < Me "Tin Hat" is on.

when I get the results and click-through to the result page....i see no actual link......only a text html url on the page.

What surrounds the http reference? What is being "associated" with the http reference?

Also, searching for these types of unlinked "references" will turn up some pretty interesting stuff. You can find a good deal of the scraper activity through these types of searches.

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Slinger! < I might be late to the welcoming party. :)

I don't think you get credit for it with the search engines. But I wish they would because most of the links I get from the "main stream media" these days have the HREF link disabled.

So maybe they will start to give some credit for them just because that has been the trend for a few years now with the big news sites.

Welcome, Slinger.

P1R, what do you think about URLs in <noscript> for js off browsers?

turned to a "reference" after it served its purpose.

LMAO. You are an eternal optimist ;)

Does Google count these text urls as actual links?

I don't know if Google stores possible html urls as a separate field in their database. But I doubt that any engine would use text url in ranking algo.

P1R, what do you think about URLs in <noscript> for js off browsers?

If you search Google for http references, you'll see "exactly" what they think of URIs in <noscript> elements or any other recommended accessibility elements. :)

If there is abuse there, I think Google are intelligent enough to determine that. It works both ways. It all comes back to intent. It takes quite a few things added up to determine the intent. There is absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing the elements you have available to you in HTML/XHTML/CSS, they all serve a purpose.

I believe that unlinked http references have some value in the "overall" scheme of things. And, I think they may work against you in some instances. I can't prove that, but some of the stuff I find in me continued research leads me to believe otherwise. I've found more trails leading to abusive practices with unlinked URI references than anything else. They are an easy find too. Its the cloaked ones I can't seem to catch. They're ghosts.

A couple of years ago I started linking my references here at WebmasterWorld a little differently. Instead of using the Anchor text, I started using a linked http reference associated with the anchor text. Like this...

The Value of Text URL vs A HREF Linked URL
Text URL vs A Href Linked URL
[WebmasterWorld.com...]

Why? Because I print out topics. Yup, I'll actually print out 5, 10, 15 pages of topic and read it while relaxing on the patio or something. I can't see the damn http references when anchor text is linked. Yes, I know, there are vays avound dat. But, I'm in a hurry like most other information junkies. Those printed http references sure help me a bit. And, with Brett's friendly URIs, that makes it even all the better. I can type those in fairly quickly.

I've tried clicking on the printout but it doesn't work. ;)

Thank you for all the good answers.

Pageoneresults: No specific case, just in general when I see them.

I've tried clicking on the printout but it doesn't work. ;)

i think you need to double right-click on those

I will say at a minimum, I have seen evidence that Google and others can discover pages/sites where the site is only mentioned in a article as text... absolutely no link to it anywhere on the internet. It's not that much of a stretch to believe that Google can detect strings like [*...] or *.com within content even if it is not a hyperlink and actually crawl the page/site referenced. Whether it is used in their ranking algorithm is a different story. No way to confirm.

I have seen further evidence of them following non-link references similar to this in other less obvious places as well.

It's quite possible that nonlinked URLs within a page's body copy could be used in rankings.

In a number of circumstances, such a URL could be taken as a type of citation by the search engines, just as link citations are counted.

For instance, within some news articles, some sites will mention the URLs without linking them up -- the citation in such a case might be worthwhile for ranking purposes.

I doubt that any engine would use text url in ranking algo

Google includes misspelled "text links" in webmaster tools. So maybe such links influence PR.

To be honest, it would surprise me if the text URL's that aren't hyperlinked ARE factored in the ranking algorithm's...I mean, why wouldn't they be? They should be seen as a "vote" as much as a hyperlinked URL.

sometimes when I do a links:www.whatever.com search in Google for backlinks to a site, when I get the results and click-through to the result page....i see no actual link......only a text html url on the page.

Note that the correct syntax for this special operator is link: - not links:. If you enter a query for links:example.com you are essentially searching for pages with the character strings "links", "example" and "com"

It's common in academia for citing, footnotes and references, epsecially Harvard and Oxford styles for example.

I have a high ranking niche industry resource site which I ask visitors to cite if they've found it useful (theoretically, if it's an academic paper of any sort, these days they have to), and request they use the standard Harvard style.

Lot's of .edu's have student and lecturer papers online now, so it's very common in that segment.

Does it help with ranking? Dunno, and don't really care, but I live in the hope that one day, I'll be included in the cites for a Nobel prize paper! ;-)

tedster: Thank you for the correction.

BTW, im new here, how does everybody put that box of text (of what someone else said) in their replies?

Slinger, use the ['quote'] (minus the apostrophes) and ['/quote'] commands.

Under google webmaster tools i have loads of text links for external links to a site .

Add also the "nofollow" attribute. When I reviewed my google webmaster tool, I noticed that Google listed an inbound to my site from a website that links to me using a nofollow attribute.

Slinger, it's ubb codes [webmasterworld.com].

jcmiras, did you exclude the possibilities that
1. The link changed to nofollow after Google crawled the page and
2. There was a mistake in the code, perhaps they used something like REL=N0F0LL0W so Google ignored the tag?

I don't know about ranking or passing on PR or anything like that. But I know of at least one case where one of my sites shows up for backlinks by Yahoo when the full URL was located only 'floating' in the html source code of another site.

I think they crawl whatever URLs they find in text, hrefs etc

But for ranking purposes, they only use hrefs.....

I've seen new sites show in SERPs many times with no links from anywhere, no "Add URL" done by the site owner but with 2 or 3 "mentions" of the site in plain text on other sites.

My 2 cents:

When it comes to ranking Web sites: Currently, G and other SE's probably don't recognize citations that do not include hyperlinks. But, I would not rule it out entirely, and foresee a day when it will happen, if it is not happening now.

Google Scholar, for example, regards a citation not necessarily as a link (as we in the SEO community do) but as a true citiation in the more scholarly sense of the word. That includes citiations that are not necessarily hyperlinked, and regardless of whether the citation is a URL, title, or something else. They then attempt to associate documents and rank them according to, in part, those citations. From Google Scholar:

How are articles ranked?
Google Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most relevant results will always appear on the first page.

Would it be hard for Google to note unlinked references to, for example, cnn.com in pdf's found at various .edu sites, and factor those mentions into their trust/authority rank of cnn.com?

Should/will the unlinked mention of "Google Scholar" (now twice) in this thread -- a thread that also refers to URL's, links, authoritative references and citations -- factor in to search engines' assessment of GS?

As a marketer who also knows something about SEO, would I be happy to see the brands I am promoting be mentioned in authoritative articles, even if the mentions are not hyperlinked? ;-)

In reference to nofollow-ed links showing in Webmaster Tools, Matt Cutts said back in the March webmaster chat that "...the idea of links in the webmaster console is to show practically all of the links that we know of. That's why we even show nofollow links."