WMT Incoming Links Report Improved

[hugh]

I don't know how recent the change is but I'm seeing much better reporting depth for incoming links from Google WMT tools today. Yahoo site explorer still reports many more but only allows you to export the first 1000.

Update: It's a sad day when a web site has more comment link spam than proper links (10:1) but the site still ranks so Google must be seeing past it so credit to them...

[tedster]

In the past few weeks, I've been delighted with the reports of backlinks to internal pages - some very helpful information has been surfaced here.

Is that the kind of thing you are appreciating? Or is it even more complete reporting of home page backlinks?

[hugh]

I've given up on link building but these improvements are showing some natural growth which is good so they're valuable irrespective of where the links are pointing.

On the subject of the comment spam I noticed a lot of it coming from Asia several years ago but these reports show portions of it coming from Russia and a .edu domain which I wasn't aware of...

[Sally Stitts]

I am not seeing this. My reported links for one site have been fairly stable this year.

2009
Feb. 12 - 8,003 incoming links
Mar. 11 - 8,395 incoming links
Aug. 14 - 2,855
Aug. 23 - 3,047
Nov. 22 - 2,586
Dec. 22 - 3,032
2010
Feb. 22 - 3,243
Apr. 19 - 3,286
May. 10 - 3,261

Last month, I had one page leap to the top with hundreds of links, and then disappear a few days later. Inexplicable.

These links are bogus, as far as a metric. You never know what the criteria is, and the criteria is constantly changing. I no longer place any value on this report. I continue looking only for entertainment purposes, to see what limited, random results I am going to see next. Google simply displays "some links" - that's it. No conclusions whatsoever can be drawn regarding your links changing "over time".

[aristotle]

It's true that the reports are very incomplete, and the selection of which links to display is generally illogical.

On the other hand, the lists will often display new naturally-acquired links that you didn't previously know about. So that makes it worth a daily check for me.