Major Drop in Number of Inbound Links

[dukelips]

Recently the number of outbound links to our website has reduced considerably.

What could be the reason for such a major drop

[Receptional Andy]

I suppose the first question is how you are measuring the number of links. If this is via the link: command in Google, then the data is not reliable. See, for instance, "Number of links went down drastically on Google [webmasterworld.com]".

A better way to measure Google links is via the Webmaster Tools system: you can export the data to a spreadsheet which, if done reasonably regularly, will give you an easy way to see which links are no longer in the list.

[dukelips]

yes i used link:site.com to test the number of links. Webmaster Tools System : does it mean the google webmaster tool kit

[Receptional Andy]

Google Webmaster Tools [google.com]

This allows you to get a much more accurate count of links. There's really no way to interpret data from a link: search since the numbers returned do not entirely depend on how many links there are to a site - there's massive fluctuation even if numbers of links haven't changed.

[dukelips]

thk u for ur help

the number of links to the main site is shown as 2625.

still the link:site.com shows only 35. How could i improve the numbers since they affect the page rank for our website

[tedster]

Have no worries, the link: operator numbers do not affect PageRank. It's just a goofy little reporting function that gives limited information.

[dukelips]

i hv heard that backlinks affect pagerank ; wht r the main factors that affect page rank .help please

[tedster]

Yes, PageRank is all about backlinks and the strength of the pages on the other sites that hold those backlinks. But PR is about the REAL backlinks, not the distorted reports that are publicly available.

The thing to appreciate is that there are two different numbers going on 1)the links that Google actually knows about ... and 2) the libnks they choose to show in the link: operator. PR is computed from #1. They have chosen not to expose their link data to the whole world through their link: operator. They say it would allow people to reverse engineer too much of the algorithm.

And hey, some search engines won't even show you any backlinks!

[dukelips]

tx ted.

i hv been put on a target to increase the page rank of the website within a months time and i m still in no mans land

[tedster]

The PageRank that you see in the toolbar only updates about 4 times a year, so that's quite an unfair target to give you. There might well be no visible change in one month, even though your work was excellent!

But you're right, what you need to see is more good backlinks - especially those wonderful, freely given, editorial links in the content area of an article on a quality website. To get that kind of link, you need to have really good content that will attract the link and find ways to let others know about it wome way.

[dukelips]

also we r not supposed to get backlinks from other sources (link exchange)

Is it possible to increase the pagerank by internal linking

[tedster]

Link exchange is OK as a part of a balanced mix - especially with related sites. On it's own, link exchange or "reciprocal links" will top out in its effectiveness.

Proper internal linking can distribute PR more effectively. But the PR you distribute has to come from somewhere - some other site has to "vote' for you.

[tshirtdeal]

This is happening to me, Just checked my Google webmasters and all my links for my site are GONE...(inbound)

My site went from 1st page for broad search terms 2 months ago to page 6 or 7, (I have explained this here before)

NOW, at month 2-3 my site has dropped back to 13-15 page results for homepage only (the other search term dropped out of Google)

At this point that my homepage dropped back from page 6-7 to 13-15 I notice that Google inbound links in webmasters are all gone...

the pages which had 100's of links are not even there and now there are a few pages with 5 to 20 links sitting there...

Long story short---- A few months ago I posted here my site took a hit, 2 broad terms where on page 1 after 1 year of work on a site...

I assume I got a penatly as these pages dropped from page 1 to page 6 or 7.... the one page (not the homepage) then just dropped off, this was the page that had the most links to it....

A look at webmaster then said the page had 2000 inbound links, but most were from 4 or 5 sites which gave me a sitewide link (Google counted every link from every page which these links showed up on, one site but when they linked to me the link went on every page = 1000's of links)

Google traffic dropped off the map, now the homepage dropped from pages 6-7 to 13-15 and only a few pages shows any inbound links...perhaps 5 to 20 per page and only 30 pages showing links, where before, my 300 page site showed links for all pages, and many more then 10 to 20...some in the hundreds and one in the thousands (exept for homepage which always had thousands)

IMO, I took a penalty for linking and now they devalued all my links?

any help on how to recover from this is appreciated, at this point this was one year of work and I am ready to give up on the site unless someone feels I can recover from this...

TIA for any help....