WMT 'links to your site' disappeared

[bramley]

The Google WMT 'links to your site' have disappeared from both my main sites.

Is this happening to everyone? Is it something that happens every so often? Or should I be worried?

[tedster]

I just checked a few sites and I hasn't happened to them - but that doesn't mean you should worry. Webmaster Tools data bugs happen pretty frequently. If you haven't made any changes, and you're still getting search traffic, then in all likelihood it is a bug in WMT.

[Andem]

I can confirm, under "Links to your site", everything other than "How your data is linked" now produces No data available.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Happened to us sometime back. Must be a bug and should resolve in a couple of days.

[stricknine]

Same here, "links to your site" empty for my site (located in France) since yesterday.

[tranquilito]

Same here - a bug for sure.

[Pjman]

I can confirm on half of my sites.

I always notice this happens 3-5 days before a major ranking change for the sites that it affects.

[stricknine]

I always notice this happens 3-5 days before a major ranking change for the sites that it affects.

Well lets hope that it will be a positive one !

[underglass]

Same here.

[Roaming Gnome]

I always notice this happens 3-5 days before a major ranking change for the sites that it affects.

Oh boy... Fingers crossed.

[johnmoose]

I have seen it happen a couple of times on my sites. It always returns, so no worries.

[agent_x]

I always notice this happens 3-5 days before a major ranking change for the sites that it affects

Great, just as I got some traffic back to a site that came out of a six month penalty, and now...yep, no link data in WMT.

[lucy24]

Heh, they must be moving from top to bottom because mine disappeared today. (Um, google, when it says "Why not?" I think what people actually want to know is why this specific area is empty, otherwise they'd be hitting the sidebar for a generic "why not?")

Do you still have the full list of "How your data is linked"? Mine comes up same as ever-- replete with internal links that they have never previously admitted to knowing. And it still shows those very same external links that they claim not to have any information on. But the Internal Links page itself is likewise No Data Available.

[Andem]

Links for my sites have all returned. I was rather hoping for some kind of an update, any ray of hope of getting out of this panda 2.0 agony.

[mercedesP]

Well, they have returned, but still not quite ok, as I see a "-" (minus) number count from the number of links pointed from my mysite.com to www.mysite.com. (either they count or they don't but negative?)

I 301'd mysite.com to www.mysite.com a few months back (around Jan)

[stricknine]

It has returned for me too. But there seem to have been an update, the link counts are totally different (more up-to-date) than before the disappearance.

At least an update of this section, not necessarily an update of the SERPs.

[Nagani]

The links are back to my WMT. Some links removed but old, non-existed links still there. No SERP changes.

[jim25]

On Thursday 12th we had major ranking drop, the following day I saw no link data being displayed in WMT. When it came back on the Saturday 2 of my main pages were missing, then on the Monday a further 3 pages are missing including the homepage.

All pages that are missing have fallen in the serps, is this a bug at Google, the total number number of links has fallen about 80,000 links

[tristanperry]

Yeah, there does seem to have been an update. I've seen my number of links plummet along with a small loss in traffic (nothing major though). I'd say the number of links gone is around 80-85%*, but only a 5-15% drop in traffic (the site only gets a few hundred uniques per day and its traffic varies depending on the day, so I'm not 100% sure on the traffic drop just yet).

* The links lost is no biggie really. One major source of 'backlinks' I had was a sig link on a forum I'm very active on. Also I got digg'ed a few months ago leading to WMT reporting 100-ish backlinks (somehow?) from Digg.com. Both of these backlink sources have gone from WMT. I don't think that either source of backlink give any real authority to my site though since they weren't editorial (NB: I certainly wasn't posting on the forums with the sig-link for the backlink authority, as an FYI), so it's not a problem really.

[jim25]

I dont mind a drop in backlinks but WMT is not showing any data for 5 of our pages. What could this mean?

[learnseo81]

and those 5 pages are intact in SERPs or fallen down? Something is going on as my whole site is crushed. I've posted a new thread about this which will be appearing soon. Being a new member, my thread requires approval from mods.

[jim25]

The five pages have fallen from page 1 to page 2 for lots of keywords, I am worried what pages will be next

[learnseo81]

I believe all of your pages are going to fall today in the next few hours. Google seem to be doing something and this is happening to a lot of websites. My whole website is crushed since the last 3 days and nothing is back so far.

What I conclude from this is, Google is doing major index update and once your backlinks data are reassessed, you should be back in the SERPs on the same position (Maybe a bit higher or lower but nothing big.)

Anybody feels my explanation is logical?

[Pjman]

Yeah, something big is going on. All my sites are suddenly all over the place in WMT and the Serps. Everytime I log in, it's different.

Panda 4? Sorry, the real Panda 3. It definitely something bigger than just Panda 2.2.

[Bewenched]

I just hope that they FIX the "Links to your site" so that it actually shows outside links and not your own site.... grr... that horks me off.

[Ummon]

yea I am seeing the same, 90% of my links are gone

[jim25]

So you guys think they will come back along with rankings and traffic

[learnseo81]

100% of my links are gone. SERPs are bouncing like yoyo.

[learnseo81]

Google Admitted problem and should be corrected. Seems like It has something to do with ranking drop. Fingers crossed.

[google.com...]

[Robert Charlton]

Thanks, learnseo81. Here's the explanation from Google on the matter....

[google.com...]

Last Friday we had a lag in the link counts being reported for some sites in Webmaster Tools. You may have noticed this issue in the "Links to your site" feature if you saw link counts of zero or link counts that were much lower than what was being reported for your site previously. The good news is that the reporting system for "Links to your site" is once again running normally. We expect it will probably take a day or so before all sites in Webmaster Tools are refreshed with the most recent link counts.