Dead / inaccurate back links

how can this happen

[manufactu]

like everyone else, i monitor back links pretty heavily. I recently noticed that my sites back links are suddenly way low and some of them are actually dead links. How can google suddenly refresh my sites links and have some of them be dead ones?

[Filipe]

Try asking Google!

HAHAHAHA!

Actually, Google won't tell you - every month they do stuff to their algorithm and slightly change the way things run (usually for the better and to battle unethical SEO tactics). There are anomalies every single month and the best thing to do is see if there's a logical explanation for it, and if not, to email Google about it, and wait until the next update.

You probably won't get a reasonable response from Google (if you get one that answers your question at all) but you gotta play the game sometimes.

Of course, other SEO's might disagree with me. If you have a better way to deal with Google issues, I'd like to hear it. =)

[Susanne]

manufactu, welcome to WebmasterWorld :)
It is possible that the dead links "died" after the last Google update. Google keeps all pages in its database and usually updates it once a month. Any changes done to a site or regarding the incoming links won't be reflected immediately. So during the next update or the one after that, the dead links probably wont't be there anymore.

If your link popularity has gone down, it could mean that the Google algo changed during the last update, or the pagerank of the pages where your links are located has dropped. Google generally only shows linkpop from PR4 pages and above but all links count. Are you happy with your placement in search results and still receive the same amount of traffic? In that case, all is well. :)

[manufactu]

Thank you for the insightful replys. I am new to this game and I have found the posts and replys here to be extremely helpful in clarifying some of the confusion I have had about search engines and how they work - especially google. Our web sites rankings have plumeted with the loss of our back links. We are in a very competitive category (log homes) but do provide unique, relevant and useful content that most people find enjoyable and informative. I can only assume that our low ranking correlates highly to the backlinks.

By the way, how often does google update backlinks?

[takagi]

The backlinks are updated together with the other information in the database of Google. That happens approximately once a month. Last update was March 6 [webmasterworld.com]
so the new update will start soon.

[Susanne]

Alright manufactu,
Time to roll up the sleeves and go link hunting. :) Hop over to the Link Development [webmasterworld.com] forum and start to read. Surely you'll get some useful tips. Then check the backlinks of your competitors and try to get links from the same sites. Submit to dmoz, joeant, goguides and gimpsy. Continue to search for suitable sites and directories to ask for a link from.
I think it takes at least two updates for Google to pick up new back links or to delete old ones. Patience is a virtue. :)

[manufactu]

Indeed, patience is important with getting good rankings. Thank you for your insight. I just got an idea for a movie "Good Link Hunting" Sorry, really bad attempt at humor. A hunting I will go.....