Link credits

28 incoming links disappeared this update

[Liane]

Interesting that Google have all of a sudden discounted 20 links I still have from last update to this update. For several months, (according to Google's count) I had 148 links. Now they credit my site with only 128.

Any idea why?

[angiolo]

Did the lost links decreased the PR?

[Liane]

Not that I can see, but I have a Mac and therefore no tool bar. It is still PR 5 and still 4th from the top in my category.

By the way, I checked to make sure that the missing links are all still PR 4 or above. They are.

[quiet_man]

I recently read a post (can't find it now of course. Typical!) that talked about 'link rot' and how over time the value of an incoming link may decrease. I always understood the term to refer to links from sites that then disappear (404s), so maybe its the wrong terminology, but still I suspect there may be something to do with longevity.

Certainly I've had sites 'lose' links that are still coming from PR3 or PR4 pages. Of course, just because it doesn't show in your backlinks, it doesn't mean its not counted. Just that its gone below the PR threshold for showing links. Also the calibration of PR is not exact - well, not on the public side anyway. So there could be high PR4 and low PR4 pages - maybe some of your links have moved from high to low? Or your home page from high PR5 to low PR5 - that may also reduce the amount of links shown.

[Liane]

Thanks quiet-man, I wondered about link rot ... and I suppose that is the only explanation unless there has been some "human intervention" for some reason.

It just seems so strange that perfectly good links (several of which drive a good amount of traffic to my site) would for whatever reason be deemed as "less important" than they actually are.

This Page Rank system is a real inigma. As long as it doesn't affect my rank in the SERPS, I suppose I don't really care that much. There are only so many relevant links I really want to chase down in my industry. Past that, I would just be trying to buy PR and I can't see the point. If they don't drive traffic, I can't justify spending the time getting them.

[nancyb]

Base my response on the fact that my site has just returned to the index after a long suspension/penalty :) and my results may be different than yours because of that.

Google shows me with 294 back links, a number of which are my own pages. All of my oldest links from as far back as 1999 are included if they are at least PR4 but many of my newer links (2002 forward) from PR5-PR7 sites are not included.

Link rot doesn't seem to be a factor, but new seeds are absent.

[2_much]

Liane do they show in the "contain the term" section? Also, did u sort the backlinks by PR to make sure they weren't there?

[quotations]

Several months ago, one of my sites went from over 800 links down to less than 200. Many other pages went from 600+ down to 150-250.

Over the past couple of months, the incoming links count has grown slowly until last month they were just about back to where they started.

This month they dropped again but not nearly as badly.

This just appears to happen from time to time. It is as though they throw away what they already know and start over from scratch.

[Liane]

Liane do they show in the "contain the term" section? Also, did u sort the backlinks by PR to make sure they weren't there?

Nope, not in the "contain the term" section. I can't sort the backlinks ... no toolbar for Macs. :(