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I still have links recorded that were removed a long time ago, and other new ones that have been waiting for an age to be factored in.
Interestingly, Googlebot has spidered all the offending link pages several times, and the cached versions of the pages show the new links and the absence of old ones.
Should we be worried about the increasing disparity between the very fresh Google results and the very out of date Backlinks/PageRank? Does this impact upon the quality of the SERPs?
>>>Are the backlinks months out of date?
Not months, only 29 days :)
Herenvardö
This is in the complete opposite direction of the other engines where they have been steadily increasing.
The backlinks listed in Google to my site have been dropping steadily -> 900+ -> 400+ -> 64 -> 37 (presently).
I've been noticing the number of listed backlinks dropping over the past three months or so. Remember that Google only lists pages with a PR4 or higher in the backlinks.
With the past few updates,sites seem to be losing PR and old backlinks are reappearing causing some sites' PR to go up. If that is the case with the new algorithm then the number of backlinks displayed would drop and increase accordingly. As this algorithm is refined over time PR should change.
Remember that we don't show all links, so we can often process newer links without them necessarily showing up for a link: search. I think almost all links should be pretty recent now. If you're still seeing a link show up that has been gone for a while, you could check on If-Modified-Since and make sure your server is responding correctly.
I don't know if backlinks by themselves are the entire issue. It seems that home pages and those indexed directly from the home page are being updated regularly in the "rolling" update while pages lower in the site aren't being updated at all. I've added over 2000 pages to one of my sites over the past month and a half and they have yet to be added to the "3 week rolling update". Their Recently Modified status has been updated within the rolling update window yet they are not in Google's index while pages which are in the same directory and linked from the same pages have been updated. Anyone know why?
Googleguy..."I think almost all links should be pretty recent now".
Yeah,sure they are. I've got an interesting one for you. In addition to my sites I also have some sites set up using virtual hosting. If they do well I may buy a domain name for them. Well over a year ago I set up a site like that at [mywebhost.com...] It didn't do anything traffic or sales wise so I deleted all of the files from the server last September.
During the Dominic..Esmerelda...Rolling Update thing I was busy adding thousands of pages to one of my sites. (None of them have been added to the index). While checking to see what files of mine were actually in Google I ran across [mywebhost.com...] in the SERPS. Remember that these files have been deleted from the server for NINE MONTHS. I still had the original files so I recreated the directory and uploaded all of the files to the server. Guess what? [mywebhost.com...] is NOW in #1 position in the SERPS for "widgets".
Just what does Google call "current" or "pretty recent"? Files that should have long "faded out of the index" because they were DELETED turn up in the index 9 months later as "current". Once the DELETED files are restored to the server the index page NOW ranks #1 in the "current" (read as "pretty recent" if it makes you feel better) SERPS for the primary search argument. Current? Yeah,sure they are. The $64,000 question still remains. What about the 2,000+ pages that I have added to my site over the past month and a half? How long before THEY are "current" or even "pretty recent"?
My backwards links are miles out still and are less than they were 12 months ago when they have at least doubled.
If you're still seeing a link show up that has been gone for a while, you could check on If-Modified-Since and make sure your server is responding correctly.
Googlebot has been swollowing pages from my site each day now for a month. So why would my backward links be so far out? Is there something about backward links I'm not understanding?
Dave
Is there something about backward links I'm not understanding?
Yeah,the warm,moist precipitation on your back isn't rain. It seems to be raining on some people and not others. Get it?
link:www.domain.com -> 3 links (all externall)
link:www.domain.com/default.html -> 6 links (all internall)
"www.domain.com" -> 55 results
To make it funnier, none of this results is true: I've many inbound links that google does not see. ¿Somebody knows why?
I'll inform you if google finds any of my links
Gretings,
Herenvardö
Dave_Hawley, your case is quite normal. There are plenty of sites out there that got decreasing backlinks although there are much more inbound links. The most obvious reason that I see is that you lose more of PR4 pages than you gain during the past 12 months...This is due to the fact that your link partners provide either rotten links or divide their link pages into several ones and your links happen to be on the newer and lower PR pages.
Not all the links with PR4 or more that you got in July will appear in this update of August. Since Esmeralda I observe that some backlinks (not all) were reported not in that round of update but delayed to the next one. I'm quite sure you will see the missing ones next time.
Herenvardo said:
"Since today a link created on July, 16 appears in a backlinks search. I hope that now will begin to appear the links that I get last month."
Sounds good. I thought that the backlinks still only visibly updated about once every month, so it's new for me to hear that backlinks are being factored in continuously and appearing in links searches. Did you use the link:www.domain.com for this or is there some other search?
I'd really like to know if incoming links are updated more than once a month.
Thanks,
Jeremy
However, it seems a little harsh to jump down the throats of those who post saying that their backlinks have been updated since [whatever date]. At the very least this is providing the useful information that some backlinks at least have been updated (since whatever date).
Backlinks of mine about six weeks old have certainly been updated in the past week or two, but my new PR8 link hasn't pushed me above PR6. Boo hoo.
all the best to all
H
Gus
The site was doing so well, I figured Google had discovered a ton more of my inbound links,and I have some pretty good ones, So out of curiosity I did a link: search and to my surprise, Google showed only 3 non-internal links!
and one was a weird obscure one...some overseas directory. And this is a all-American...only-USA-local-specific site.
Who cares, not me, if a site can rank so well in spite of this.
