incoming links greatly reduced

[Satch_Reed]

Until recently, Google recognized about 160 incoming links to my website. Now it only sees 27. I just recently started a "resource directory" on my site, and about 15 of the sites listed added my link to their site.

Does anyone know what has caused this, and what can be done to improve it?

Thanks

[DerekH]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Satch_Reed

The links that Google prints to your site when you use the Link: command are only a selection of all the links it knows about.

There used to be a theory that only links from pages PR4 and above would figure in the list.
Then came evidence to suggest that Google offered a more random selection, specifically perhaps to stop webmasters seeking links from the same high PR sites that were linking to their competitors. This "follow me" attitude tends to make the more popular sites more highly linked to, and therefore apparently more popular still, when in fact they are simply link-magnets and their extra links are not votes for the worth of the site, simply a link to a high-ranking site.

I wouldn't be perturbed to see your inbound links fluctuate.
Getting more of them, of course, is a job you should never give up on...
DerekH

[Tomazaz]

How to find out how much incoming links my site has in google.com?

[Nikke]

I don't actually think there is a way to do that anymore.

And just recently Yahoo.com seems to have capped their linkdomain: command. Still, it's there and quite useful. For all my sites Google is doing a both faster and better jobb indexing new pages, and if Yahoo knows about a link, I can feel pretty sure that Google knows about it too.

You can also try the link: command in MSN Search.