Ranking Slide and Webmaster Tools

backlinks show an old "Last Found" date

[jaimes]

Hi, I was looking in Googles Webmaster Tools section and they have a feature to get a more accurate look at ones external links pointing to the pages in your site. The Flag that worried me is I saw
that the Last time they show as found was in Late March for my site.

For example over 2900 links were shown, but under Last Found it shows March 27 or 28

My site started a slide in the rankings shortly after that and I wonder if anyone has any thoughts about what problem I am having.

Thanks in advance/
J

[tedster]

I'm not sure that the two things have a cause/effect relationship. GWT is a reporting function only and it does show staleness and inaccuracy [webmasterworld.com] rather frequently. Google's Adam Lasnik posted some reassurance here recently about that, saying "the tail doesn't wag the dog".

Your slide in rankings would be a cause for concern for most site owners - and indeed in our SERP Changes thread [webmasterworld.com] people are reporting greater than usual shifts in the SERPs - with the suspicion that something major is changing beyond the normal daily or weekly jiggling about.

Unless you are aware of a violation of Google's guidelines on your site (if so, fix that), I'd suggest you study the sites that have recently risen above you to see if there's a pattern you might tweeze out.

It's usually considered an asset to have your links "age" - so as long as Google acknowledges their exisitence, the fact that they do not report a recent spidering of those links wouldn't bother me very much. I take that as a sign that the computing power used for GWT is currently suspended/diverted to other tasks.

[jaimes]

yes, except that it is not recognizing anything new linking in since March, that is the bigger concern

It is still confusing those "older" links have not been re-registered since March when that used to happen frequnetly

Thanks, J