Google Backlink Update

[Immo]

Looks like there is a backlink update happening, loads of sites I look after have just had their links slashed down to about half what they had an hour ago...

Anyone else noticed anything?

[Kitchen Designer]

Yeah, I used to have 300 with Google. Now I have 17 apparently. WTF?

[Immo]

Checked a few more sites and the same thing is happening.

A competitor of ours has dropped from 11000 to 960 (which is nice for us) dnt really know whats happening....

Further investigation required...

[G10]

Keep checking guys.

You know what it's like when there is a refresh, or whatever you wish to call it. Everything goes a bit nuts for a while.

Try again in a few days and see if it's still the same.

[Immo]

Gives me an excuse to get excited about something

Let the good times roll

[KRM]

it was same at me yesterday. Just came back but not added any.

[Immo]

Yeah t all went back to normal last night but its gone back to the same thing again this morning... They must be changing something around, hopefully they will get rid of some of the portal sites and non descript traffic generation sites...

[LorenBaker]

Quality links. Maybe Google is showing what is quality, and what is bull. Part of the PageRank update really;

[Originally posted @ SEJ]

Google seems to have expanded their differentiation between bogus links and earned links with this new update.

What are bogus links?

Examples include :

* Mass distribution of duplicate articles and press releases with the same links in them to one site

* Reciprocal link and link farm campaign

* Mass directory listing on directories which humans do not visit.

And what are earned links or organic links?

* Links from authority blogs and web communities

* Links earned from well branded and trafficked sites

* Links obtained for the influx of traffic and not trying to increase PageRank

* Links earned via news coverage offline or online : relevant content to the link may be the key. For example, actually ahving something written about your company on the same domain which is linked to you.

* Linkbaiting (the art of creating an idea or tool on your site worth linking to)

* Yellow page, local directory, user reviews, & local search marketing for brick and mortar businesses.

[DarrenC]

Mine's jumped up by a few hundred - happy days!

(Not that it matters!)

Darren

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by sej

Quality links. Maybe Google is showing what is quality, and what is bull. Part of the PageRank update really;

[Originally posted @ SEJ]

Are you suggesting that Google's link: command is showing better quality links?

[LorenBaker]

This is probably on a case by case basis John.

As an example, I'll look at Search Engine Journal

First, 3,460 backlinks for SEJ on Google:

First 10:

google.blognewschannel.com/
blogherald.com
ysearchblog.com
blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/
searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3412721
tech.memeorandum.com/060120/p68
blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/current_affairs/

63,300 backlinks on Yahoo:

The first 10 are quite similar, more clean and listed by domain:

blogsearchengine.com
www.google.com/googleblog
ysearchblog.com
blogherald.com
dailyrotation.com
blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch
ysearchblog (internal post)
blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch (internal post)
jimboykin.com
google.blognewschannel.com

Both are appropriate measurements of quality external links, although Yahoo's are a bit more relevant. As you can see, some similar blogs/sites are considered top 10 backlinks by each, blogherald.com, google.blognewschannel.com, ysearchblog.com, and msn. I would identify allof these as industry authorities.

Yahoo seems to dig back deeper for long term links, as blogsearchengine has always linked to SEJ, and daily rotation is one of the first links I ever received.

I think that the quality of both results are comparable, atleast for the first group of results, it's the quanity which differs.

Yahoo has more backlinks listed, but when I go to view over 1,000 of them, most of those are omitted from the results. When I look at the last 991-1000, 9 of those links arefrom spam sites and alot do not even exist anymore.

On Google however, if I look at results for the last 900-950 backlinks, more quality sites exist, although a lot are for internal pages to quality sites which were listed beforehand.

My non-scientific conclusion is that Google is showing a higher percentage of quality links in its backlinks results and Yahoo, although listing alot, is listing alot of crap.

[John Scott]

Very interesting. Looking at v7n backlinks I don't see any pattern at all.

[bcombs]

That would be a very useful development and would aid SEO's in gaming the system. Therefore, I think it is unlikely that Google did it. :-)

I'd love to be wrong, however.

[iwebcreate]

Another google backlink update

Google Updated Backlinks

Dated : 14-Sep-2006

My client Nucleus Data Recovery site backlinks goes from 208 to 356.

Can somebody predict PR Update. I hope it wil be due in next 15 days. Isn't it ??

[charlesgan]

great... making the links more complicated.

yahoo linkdomain, show my site backlink is far much more than google. and keep growing from time to time.

but got google link: it keep decreasing. LOL.
all those directory submission is wasted.

[webzenstar]

You're right about the fact there have been changes but if I look at the links back to my main web sites, I can't see a pattern of which one are "more likeable" in Google's view.

I trust this latest "Google Dance" (for lack of more insight about what's going on) will help provide more quality links in everyone's web searches, which, in the end, is very good news for the web, in general.

[Richie_Ni]

Nice..It did work for my sites...I think they will update pr soon