Google backlinks gone mad ?

**aotagain** · 29-03-09

Been doing a bit of research on some niches, by doing the link:url search in Google on some big websites.

A couple of week ago all the backlinks were there.
Now all the forum backlinks to the sites I looked at are gone and a load of others as well.
Yahoo site explorer showing everything still.

Anyone seen this / got explanations ? - is G doing something 'clever' with searches just like it gets a bit inconsistent showing Adwords depending on what you're searching for and last searched for.

Makes research a bit of a pain. I guess if they're not going to show half the backlinks, you can't so easily work out how backlinks are rated from different sites.

**mtuffin** · 30-03-09

Originally Posted by aotagain

Been doing a bit of research on some niches, by doing the link:url search in Google on some big websites.

A couple of week ago all the backlinks were there.
Now all the forum backlinks to the sites I looked at are gone and a load of others as well.
Yahoo site explorer showing everything still.

Anyone seen this / got explanations ? - is G doing something 'clever' with searches just like it gets a bit inconsistent showing Adwords depending on what you're searching for and last searched for.

Makes research a bit of a pain. I guess if they're not going to show half the backlinks, you can't so easily work out how backlinks are rated from different sites.

Can't explain why they were there but arn't now but can say Google shouldnt be used/trusted for checking backlinks.

Google don't show all the backlinks to a site publically using the link: command but will show them in webmaster tools which only the site owner(s) should have access to. They only show a portion of the backlinks publically.

This is why using Yahoo for backlink checking is more accurate.

A4U Backlinks in Google is 147
A4U Backlinks in Yahoo is 10,400

Mike

**nicheisthekey** · 30-03-09

Exactly

Use yahoo for looking at backlink, Google is a waste of time. Even the SEO plugins for Firefox use yahoo as google doesnt show or does, then doesnt as you said

Rob

**sabian1982** · 30-03-09

Google is doing an update - its aligning all its data centre information ready for the pending PageRank update. That being said, backlink numbers do fluxuate even when there isn't going to be a PR update!

**aotagain** · 30-03-09

Yes, Yahoo always more comprehensive but I just thought I'd never seen such a drastic reduction in the Google results. Maybe paranoia but was convinced it was the forum results that had gone.

I never read too much into G's monthly changes but unfortunately they do change permanently from time to time. Personally if I was G I wouldn't count forum signatures as backlinks, but that's another story of course !