HRoth - 2:41 am on Feb 7, 2013 (gmt 0)

I would like to believe this is a wmt glitch, but I don't think it is. I only noticed it because someone in another thread asked about a page rank update, so I checked my page rank and found I had gone down a slot after many years at the same ranking. I immediately checked wmt and saw the link issue. Aren't backlinks a large part of page rank? I wonder if others who have lost backlinks in wmt have lost page rank in the past few days.

I then noticed that I had lost a place or two in the search results for various keywords where there is a lot of competition in my niche. I do buy Google ads, precisely because IME, no matter how illogical it might seem, that even if only a small amount is spent, if I buy ads, my rankings are higher than if I don't buy ads. For the links I am losing position on, none of them are keywords with ads associated with them. Coincidence? I wonder. I had planned to start spending on the other keywords in the near future, and now I will notice whether those come up again in the rankings once I start doing that.