Self-Fulfilling BackLink Count

[keyplyr]

After dropping from 800+ backlinks down to 200+ over the last two updates (btw - AllTheWeb says I have 1600+), I became very concerned to what had happened and was waiting for it all to remedy. I felt sure all my hard-gotten links would return. To top it off, every one of my 160 pages took a drop in PR, at least by one and several by 2, with many white-bared.

But, to my surprise, my SERP ranking improved a bit, as did my traffic. Overall sales are up. So what am I worried about PR or backlinks for?

Well, the brutal reality hit tonight when a reply to trade links was denied due to my white-bared links page. "Hey, it used to be PR5" I wanted to say! Now I'm thinking that _all_ my unanswered reciprocal link requests are due to this messed-up PR. Irritating, especially when I see second-level-domain homepages with a cover page graphic saying "Enter Here" with PR6!

If this continues, I will undoubtedly start loosing links and then these mysterious backlink numbers _will_ be accurate!