What happened to all my (Your) back links?

[adesbarats]

I’ve been diligently working to build my in-bound linking starting back in March. I started with about 300+ links at that time.

I purchased a 5k backlink packet from Jeremy Kelsall and have also been working myself to compliment that package with my own backlink work through press releases, article writing and profile linking.

My links were steadily and consistently rising (I use Yahoo Site Explorer to assess links).

Yesterday I was over 900+ links. Today I dropped to 371 links! I checked my competition and see that they also dropped links – one dropped by 36%, the other by 42%.

Has anyone else noticed a similar, significant drop in links? Any idea what just happened?
------------------------------
Just an FYI - All my links plus interest returned as of today....

[rjaf]

Yep. Lost about 40% of them today. Reasons unknown.

UPDATE: I can't check now, but am willing to bet that it's Yahoo misreporting. It happens, so I've read. Chill.

Originally Posted by adesbarats

I’ve been diligently working to build my in-bound linking starting back in March. I started with about 300+ links at that time.

I purchased a 5k backlink packet from Jeremy Kelsall and have also been working myself to compliment that package with my own backlink work through press releases, article writing and profile linking.

My links were steadily and consistently rising (I use Yahoo Site Explorer to assess links).

Yesterday I was over 900+ links. Today I dropped to 371 links! I checked my competition and see that they also dropped links – one dropped by 36%, the other by 42%.

Has anyone else noticed a similar, significant drop in links? Any idea what just happened?

[Bill Farnham]

There has been talk of late that the search engines are getting wise to all this phoney back linking designed to fool them into thinking your pages are getting traction when in fact you're just gaming the system.

Frankly, it's about time.

Originally the thought that links from sites in the same market generally meant a vote of acceptance or confidence in your site pages was a valid one. Why wouldn't it be? Based on a shared set of commonalities across a given market, linking between sites is a natural act. This is the web, afterall.

I'm sure the practice has been going on since day one, but why should your pages get any juice from completely unrelated pages in unrelated markets/niches to the point where the search engine would raise your pages credibility index and hence their rankings? That is inherently counter-productive and misleading.

So if the SEs are getting to the point where they have to re-evaluate the practice of blindly giving links any importance in the equation so be it. The gaming of the system has probably reached the tipping point and can no longer be ignored.

5K artificial backlinks should be worth exactly what they are worth. Nothing. They serve no purpose other than to artificially inflate your web cred and in most cases they have very little tangible value to those folks searching for information on the web. In fact the opposite is true in many cases due to the fact that your pages rank not for actual value to the serps, but rather contrived value to the ranking system.

~Bill

[adesbarats]

Ok Billy,

So what do you propose a company that has just started out do, especially when they are facing competitors that are well entrenched in the SERPS by using the exact same tactics which you so loathe, hmmm?

Google laid out the playing field, we business owners are just trying to compete in it.

I'd love to hear your wisdom?

Originally Posted by Bill Farnham

There has been talk of late that the search engines are getting wise to all this phoney back linking designed to fool them into thinking your pages are getting traction when in fact you're just gaming the system.

Frankly, it's about time.

Originally the thought that links from sites in the same market generally meant a vote of acceptance or confidence in your site pages was a valid one. Why wouldn't it be? Based on a shared set of commonalities across a given market, linking between sites is a natural act. This is the web, afterall.

I'm sure the practice has been going on since day one, but why should your pages get any juice from completely unrelated pages in unrelated markets/niches to the point where the search engine would raise your pages credibility index and hence their rankings? That is inherently counter-productive and misleading.

So if the SEs are getting to the point where they have to re-evaluate the practice of blindly giving links any importance in the equation so be it. The gaming of the system has probably reached the tipping point and can no longer be ignored.

5K artificial backlinks should be worth exactly what they are worth. Nothing. They serve no purpose other than to artificially inflate your web cred and in most cases they have very little tangible value to those folks searching for information on the web. In fact the opposite is true in many cases due to the fact that your pages rank not for actual value to the serps, but rather contrived value to the ranking system.

~Bill

[charleshopeful]

I have noticed a drop in my competitors links as well, but I also know that sometimes Yahoo will grossly under-report the backlink picture. I'm not sure if it's them, a glitch in the system or what, but I have seen my own sites drop to 200 and then shoot back up to there normal amount the next day.

[Nisip]

where is the link exactly where to check the backlinks number on yahoo or somewhere else?

big Thanks

[Steven Wagenheim]

I for one hope with all my heart that all these backlink packages finally
become as worthless as they should be.

Now I'm going to crawl back in my bunker and wait for the incoming
barrage.

[InternetSuccess001]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

Ok Billy,

So what do you propose a company that has just started out do, especially when they are facing competitors that are well entrenched in the SERPS by using the exact same tactics which you so loathe, hmmm?

Google laid out the playing field, we business owners are just trying to compete in it.

I'd love to hear your wisdom?

Hi,

Provide excellent customer service, customer value, superior products, and so forth. Then your links will naturally build overtime, and then you don't have to worry about your links disappearing, etc. Or really competing with others, for that matter, simply because your business will spread by word of mouth.

The purpose of having a business (should not) be simply to "get" money, or see what you can "get" from other people or "trick" them into buying, but by "providing" service and something of value so that they genuinely want to buy. When people like what you have to offer, they will naturally purchase what you have, tell other people, link to it, etc, etc.

Altneratively, if backlinking is important to you, you could always set up your own network of sites. Might be a little more work, but then you don't have to worry about it going down the tube because 5,000 other people are using it.

[Bill Farnham]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

Ok Billy,

So what do you propose a company that has just started out do, especially when they are facing competitors that are well entrenched in the SERPS by using the exact same tactics which you so loathe, hmmm?

Google laid out the playing field, we business owners are just trying to compete in it.

I'd love to hear your wisdom?

Billy? How quaint.

I have no wisdom in this area.

I'm guessing you're one of the many who see gaming the system as more productive than contributing to the actual worth of the net by actually creating content that serves the purpose of bettering a users' experience when using search engines.

If you really consider yourself a business owner then focusing on your value to your customers should take precedence over simply taking the easy way out and buying your way into a market or niche for the sake of rankings using artificial means that add no value to the system whatsoever.

Are you seriously advocating that you think it is better for your customers that they are tricked into believing that you are someone of substance because you can afford a backlink packet?

Are your offerings so weak that they need to be artificially propped up because the real world won't provide any buzz?

I'm absolutely in favor of genuine links. I have links to my money site that go all the way back into the 1990's. I got them because other sites saw the value my site provides to that given market/niche.

What is amusing is to see 'newcomers' who are not aware that backlinking has had value over an extended period of time and seem to sense that backlinking is synonymous with all the artificial gaming they have been exposed to.

I am fully aware of my dinosauristic view on this matter, hence I fully appreciate viewpoints like yours whereby you believe that to be successful you need to resort to trickery in order to gain traction.

I just don't seem to grasp the concept of being 'king for the day' and having to start all over again when the SEs realize the only thing I can bring to the table is another 'me too' offering supported artificially by propping myself up.

I am also not advocating that you refrain from using tools you believe you need in order to get rankings. If you want to use them it's no skin off my back. Likewise, when your true value to the net is exposed and you fall back into oblivion I won't care, either.

If, on the other hand, you are truly creating substance that will stand on it's own merit, and using artificial backlinking to get you to the top of the serps where real people with real needs and wants are benefited by your existence, then I don't see it as being a big deal if you use those tactics.

Unfortunately, that is rarely the case...

~Bill

[PinkSassyRN]

Originally Posted by Nisip

where is the link exactly where to check the backlinks number on yahoo or somewhere else?

You can check your backlinks on domain-pop

[Fernando Veloso]

My 2 cents:

From my personal observations of Google PT I'd say they got a new mix in the algo: backlinks from CREDIBLE (not high PR...) sites have a bigger weight in new rankings.

Some of our sites went to the roof with a couple CREDIBLE backlinks with same anchor text.

Maybe they are removing the power of "general amount of links" and adding more weight into the "number of credible of links - not necessarily in same market".

Just my personal observation over here.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Bill Farnham

Billy? How quaint.

I have no wisdom in this area.

I'm guessing you're one of the many who see gaming the system as more productive than contributing to the actual worth of the net by actually creating content that serves the purpose of bettering a users' experience when using search engines.

If you really consider yourself a business owner then focusing on your value to your customers should take precedence over simply taking the easy way out and buying your way into a market or niche for the sake of rankings using artificial means that add no value to the system whatsoever.

Are you seriously advocating that you think it is better for your customers that they are tricked into believing that you are someone of substance because you can afford a backlink packet?

Are your offerings so weak that they need to be artificially propped up because the real world won't provide any buzz?

I'm absolutely in favor of genuine links. I have links to my money site that go all the way back into the 1990's. I got them because other sites saw the value my site provides to that given market/niche.

What is amusing is to see 'newcomers' who are not aware that backlinking has had value over an extended period of time and seem to sense that backlinking is synonymous with all the artificial gaming they have been exposed to.

I am fully aware of my dinosauristic view on this matter, hence I fully appreciate viewpoints like yours whereby you believe that to be successful you need to resort to trickery in order to gain traction.

I just don't seem to grasp the concept of being 'king for the day' and having to start all over again when the SEs realize the only thing I can bring to the table is another 'me too' offering supported artificially by propping myself up.

I am also not advocating that you refrain from using tools you believe you need in order to get rankings. If want to use them it's no skin off my back. Likewise, when your true value to the net is exposed and you fall back into oblivion I won't care, either.

If, on the other hand, you are truly creating substance that will stand on it's own merit, and using artificial backlinking to get you to the top of the serps where real people with real needs and wants are benefited by your existence, then I don't see it as being a big deal if you use those tactics.

Unfortunately, that is rarely the case...

~Bill

Bill, did I ever tell you that I think you're one cool dude?

[Danny Turner]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

I’ve been diligently working to build my in-bound linking starting back in March. I started with about 300+ links at that time.

Pity you didn't put that effort in providing quality content - not meaning to be critical - youv'e just followed the current common practise -
When I first joined here a few years back - the talk was content is king - quality content , keyword rich content blah, blah -
recently it's all been about backlinks- linkspam as some have called it -
even done a bit myself
interesting - I was using a commonly used package but being slow
was a few months behind - gave up after a few months because it effected my ratings zilch
someone suggested google had gotten the lists - (why not everyone else had them)
and had figured a way to discount them - made sense to me -and I noticed many of the links were quickly deleted anyway!
If the serps have not yet figured a way to ignore spamlinks - they soon will
so............. forget the links and build quality content and perhaps links to relevant sites
perhaps reciprical (keyword relevant) links will come back into fashion
I once read a report on how to use web2 sites for quick linkjuice - followed the examples in the report only to find most of the pages had been deleted by mods .....

what the serps want is quality content that reads well and informs the webuser
- so why waste time posting spam all over the net for short term benefit?
- write some good material and benefit from here to eternity
cheers
Danny

[adesbarats]

No, really? What brilliant ideas! Look, excuse the sarcasm but I do these things. Go to my site, take a look at my testimonials. And I have no doubt many other worthy business owners out there are quite well aware of the concept of delivering, no...over delivering on customer service and support. After all, the concept is as old as humanity itself.

I do not have the luxury of providing excellent customer service, excellent content and waiting 3-5 years for the natural process of link production to kick in and get me to the top. Who the heck does?

Originally Posted by InternetSuccess001

Hi,

Provide excellent customer service, customer value, superior products, and so forth. Then your links will naturally build overtime, and then you don't have to worry about your links disappearing, etc. Or really competing with others, for that matter, simply because your business will spread by word of mouth.

The purpose of having a business (should not) be simply to "get" money, or see what you can "get" from other people or "trick" them into buying, but by "providing" service and something of value so that they genuinely want to buy. When people like what you have to offer, they will naturally purchase what you have, tell other people, link to it, etc, etc.

Altneratively, if backlinking is important to you, you could always set up your own network of sites. Might be a little more work, but then you don't have to worry about it going down the tube because 5,000 other people are using it.

[adesbarats]

I do put the effort into quality content. Google my name and you see a whole freaking pile of quality content. Do some research before wasting my time...

Originally Posted by Danny Turner

Pity you didn't put that effort in providing quality content - not meaning to be critical - youv'e just followed the current common practise -
When I first joined here a few years back - the talk was content is king - quality content , keyword rich content blah, blah -
recently it's all been about backlinks- linkspam as some have called it -
even done a bit myself
interesting - I was using a commonly used package but being slow
was a few months behind - gave up after a few months because it effected my ratings zilch
someone suggested google had gotten the lists - (why not everyone else had them)
and had figured a way to discount them - made sense to me -and I noticed many of the links were quickly deleted anyway!
If the serps have not yet figured a way to ignore spamlinks - they soon will
so............. forget the links and build quality content and perhaps links to relevant sites
perhaps reciprical (keyword relevant) links will come back into fashion
I once read a report on how to use web2 sites for quick linkjuice - followed the examples in the report only to find most of the pages had been deleted by mods .....

what the serps want is quality content that reads well and informs the webuser
- so why waste time posting spam all over the net for short term benefit?
- write some good material and benefit from here to eternity
cheers
Danny

[Bill Farnham]

Originally Posted by John McEachern

That's kind of harsh, more than a little presumptive, and impugning of the person's character you are referring to.

I think he made his own bed, John.

~Bill

[jacksonlin]

I lost heaps of links too.

But it didn't affect my SERPS.

So I must be getting "legit" and "non spammy" links.

Hooray!

[jasonmorgan]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

I’ve been diligently working to build my in-bound linking starting back in March. I started with about 300+ links at that time.

I purchased a 5k backlink packet from Jeremy Kelsall and have also been working myself to compliment that package with my own backlink work through press releases, article writing and profile linking.

My links were steadily and consistently rising (I use Yahoo Site Explorer to assess links).

Yesterday I was over 900+ links. Today I dropped to 371 links! I checked my competition and see that they also dropped links – one dropped by 36%, the other by 42%.

Has anyone else noticed a similar, significant drop in links? Any idea what just happened?

An answer to your question... what a fun idea

While yahoo shows far more backlinks than google does, the numbers do change.

Yahoo might show that you have 6,000 this week and 5,000 the next and after that I'll jump back up to 6,000.

Why does it do this? I have no idea but after you've been tracking your sites for a while you'll see the number bounce up n' down.

So, no need to panic. Worry more about your SE rankings.

[Frank Donovan]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

So what do you propose a company that has just started out do, especially when they are facing competitors that are well entrenched in the SERPS by using the exact same tactics which you so loathe, hmmm?

I understood from Bill's post that he was decrying the fact that search engines have hitherto placed an undue emphasis on the number of backlinks pointing to a site, rather than their relevance.

A relevant link is a vote for a site and is why the search engines originally incorporated such links into their algorithms. I don't think he was criticising you specifically, just the fact that the SEs have encouraged such behaviour.

As far as how you'd compete - it seems from your OP, that this action is also affecting your competitors, so they're going to be in the same boat.

On the subject of competition, nobody starting out has a pre-ordained right to compete on an equal basis with an established business in any market. There's no reason why this simple fact of business life, which has long been accepted in the offline world, should be any different online.

As it happens, it is still easier for a small operator to compete and beat a bigger competitor on the internet, mainly because of the lower start-up and marketing costs. But this might not always be the case. Small online businesses will have to learn to compete with the big boys in the same way that small businesses have always competed - by being clever, being creative, being quicker to react, targeting more focused niches and offering better value and service.


Frank

[aandersen]

i dont give yahoo site explorer any thought really
it goes up and it goes down or whatever but it means verty little to me


for example :
as of 2 days ago on a newer site of mine i was on google page 4 for my keyword (position 37)

AND as of 2 days ago yahoo site explorer told me that i had 198 backlinks

NOW as of today

yahoo gives me 36
altavista gives me 136
alltheweb gives me 54
google webmaster tools gives me 29

However, i have moved up to page 3 (position 25)

This matters much more than some backlink checker's numbers. if i start dropping in the SERPs then i will be more concerned but my guess is that when yahoo gets over whatever hiccup its having more of my backlinks will show back up


my advise, just keep building links. whatever your initial strategy was, just stick too it and keep going and thing should work out for themselves

[adesbarats]

Thanks Jason!

Originally Posted by jasonmorgan

An answer to your question... what a fun idea

While yahoo shows far more backlinks than google does, the numbers do change.

Yahoo might show that you have 6,000 this week and 5,000 the next and after that I'll jump back up to 6,000.

Why does it do this? I have no idea but after you've been tracking your sites for a while you'll see the number bounce up n' down.

So, no need to panic. Worry more about your SE rankings.

[rhinocl]

I see a lot of very sanctimonious attitudes towards backlinks. In theory if you have a wonderful company and a great site people will link to you on their own and you don't have to build any backlinks. In practice they will never find you to link to as the search engines will never show them your page. The blame should be on the giant search engines-they wanted the money that comes from controlling the web, but they were too cheap to do human evaluations of every site-so they relied on backlink counts. Let's put the blame where it belongs.

[adesbarats]

Hi Frank,

I appreciate your courteous explanation of Billy's obnoxious post. And I do agree but my point simply is this - if they are doing it, then I must. And I do work very hard to build valuable, useful content into the whole pkg. It is the playing field that Google has given us and what choice do I have?

It just irks me when self righteous blow hards come on here and shoot you down for trying. Especially when some of them (looks at little Stevie Wagenheim) have even purchased backlink packets such as Angela's. That kind of hypocrisy just wants to make me puke.

Originally Posted by Frank Donovan

I understood from Bill's post that he was decrying the fact that search engines have hitherto placed an undue emphasis on the number of backlinks pointing to a site, rather than their relevance.

A relevant link is a vote for a site and is why the search engines originally incorporated such links into their algorithms. I don't think he was criticising you specifically, just the fact that the SEs have encouraged such behaviour.

As far as how you'd compete - it seems from your OP, that this action is also affecting your competitors, so they're going to be in the same boat.

On the subject of competition, nobody starting out has a pre-ordained right to compete on an equal basis with an established business in any market. There's no reason why this simple fact of business life, which has long been accepted in the offline world, should be any different online.

As it happens, it is still easier for a small operator to compete and beat a bigger competitor on the internet, mainly because of the lower start-up and marketing costs. But this might not always be the case. Small online businesses will have to learn to compete with the big boys in the same way that small businesses have always competed - by being clever, being creative, being quicker to react, targeting more focused niches and offering better value and service.


Frank

[Bill Farnham]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

Hi Frank,

I appreciate your courteous explanation of Billy's obnoxious post. And I do agree but my point simply is this - if they are doing it, then I must. And I do work very hard to build valuable, useful content into the whole pkg. It is the playing field that Google has given us and what choice do I have?

It just irks me when self righteous blow hards come on here and shoot you down for trying. Especially when some of them (looks at little Stevie Wagenheim) have even purchased backlink packets such as Angela's. That kind of hypocrisy just wants to make me puke.

LOL, and how are posts like this one going to improve peoples' perception of your businees acumen here on the forum?

You want to be disrespectful of other members, and than complain when their responses don't match your wishes to be commiserated.

Go ahead, flame away. We're all waiting for you to reveal your true self here so don't stop now.

~Bill

[Fernando Veloso]

I just want to add this:

Between my first post in this thread and this one and while your discussion went hotter, I managed to grab more 6 backlinks from trusted/credible sources with my anchor text in them.

Maybe your competition is just working while you're discussing?

Just an idea.

[Amitywill]

How has a thread about backlinks disappearing turned
into a **** throwing match about whose content sucks
and why backlinks don't matter?

For a start yes there has been some change in Yahoo
showing backlinks. However you'll probably notice that
your rankings are still the same in Google because it's
Yahoo that made the change NOT Google.

Maybe Yahoo are following in Googles shoes and are deciding
not to show all of a sites backlinks? Who knows.

And for the people saying "forget about backlinks, blah, blah"
And focus only on content, I'm guessing none of you actually
have any rankings for keywords that are worth mentioning. But
you are half right.

You need good content on your page to give your visitors a
good experience and good information and possibly even get
a few natural backlinks but there's NO way you're going to
rank for any worthwhile keywords without building backlinks
as well.

So stop all this BS about backlinks don't matter because Google
themselves say that they mainly rank pages based on the sites
linking to them. Do you know better than Google? I thought so.

Good Content + Lots Of Good Backlinks = High Ranking In Google & Lots Of Money.

Will

[dswift33]

Wow...this thread really degenerated. What started off as a straightforward question devolved into a name calling match providing no useful benefit...

[dswift33]

Well said Amitywill...

[jimkirk1943]

So how does google see the differance between a backlink you created on a profile site from a backlink which you got naturally because a webmaster liked your site ?? Just wondering

[cashcow]

Backlinks come and go so it's really your TRAFFIC (whether you are getting that from your position in the SERPS, from content you have syndicated or from some other means) that matters.

I'm sure the practice has been going on since day one, but why should your pages get any juice from completely unrelated pages in unrelated markets/niches to the point where the search engine would raise your pages credibility index and hence their rankings?

I can actually think of a lot of reasons why links from unrelated niches should matter.

For example, lets say that Someone invents a new floor mop that makes cleaning effortless. Housewives all over the world rejoice and blog about it on their blogs. These blogs are about things like scrapbooking, home schooling, kids toys etc... Why shouldn't those links count?

Lets say Joe Blow is an avid bowler and he has a blog about bowling. Joe also has a German Shepherd and uses viagra so he points to this really great German Shepherd training site and a natural viagra site that he likes. Should those links be discounted?

Just wondering ....

Lee

[adesbarats]

Exactly.....

Originally Posted by rhinocl

I see a lot of very sanctimonious attitudes towards backlinks. In theory if you have a wonderful company and a great site people will link to you on their own and you don't have to build any backlinks. In practice they will never find you to link to as the search engines will never show them your page. The blame should be on the giant search engines-they wanted the money that comes from controlling the web, but they were too cheap to do human evaluations of every site-so they relied on backlink counts. Let's put the blame where it belongs.

[jimkirk1943]

Emm also if someone has great content on their site like Adesbarats has whats the problem with him building backlinks so more people will see this good content along with him getting natural backlinks as time goes on ?? I just cannot help thinking that the real problem is quality of content on the site not if the site has been backlinked to give it a good start in life ! Why get upset if someone backlinks their site if the contents good ? again just wondering

[Groovystar]

high PR vs high credibility? I thought one was supposed to be indicative of the other? What's the point of PR if it doesn't actually have any meaning? Google might as well just strip it out. And if this is the case how do they establish what sites are 'credible' and which ones aren't? If they're going by algorithm there has to be some kind of ranking system for those as well.

[Shaunman]

Take the Yahoo backlinks with a grain of salt. They do not show the number of backlinks that you actually have, but they will count backlinks that which they don't show, oddly enough.

That's what I have noticed, when Yahoo drops a lot of my backlinks it really has no affect on my rankings in fact I even rank higher, so I don't care about it anymore.

It is a shame that there is no tool that I know of that will show you the "actual" number of backlinks to your site, but what are you going to do?

[vision2003]

Yeah, same thing happened to me today. I went from 1200 backlinks to a little less than 500. Now it's back to over 1200, so it's "Yahoo dance".

Besides (and I'm sure you already know this) Yahoo Site Explorer shows only a portion of all links.

[Mike Anthony]

YAWN,

Another thread with people defending backlinking on one side and people cheering on the sidelines against it. Isn't this like the fifth or sixth thread like this of neither side providing anything of substance? Haven't gotten it out of your system yet?

Move along people. I'm probably the most hated person on this board for going up against mass link spamming, I can think of about three full automated link sellers (umm no make that four) that practically foam at the mouth just seeing my name (and yeah I sold a backlink system here as well). But honestly theres quite a few of you that never come into the seo section to help anybody with SEO. The only time you comment on SEO is to throw gasoline on the fire on the subject of backlinks. ALl you want to do is vent and feel superior.

Time to move on and help newbies get reeducated on how to do white hat link building. We've had several posts lashing out. Its getting old. The rules are the rules and Google and the SEs will do what they have to do. Lets be constructive. You can't and shouldn't defend link spam on these boards but whats the purpose of the rants against it. How many threads does it take especially when people ask you your alternatives and all you can give is that it isn't your area or you don't rely on SEO? Some of you have been around long enough to have known this was going into the SEO section.

You are never here in any of the posts I and others have started to help newbies with white hat SEO. Those threads just fall off the front page. You are here to curse the darkness but you seldom are here to light it.

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by Bill Farnham

There has been talk of late that the search engines are getting wise to all this phoney back linking designed to fool them into thinking your pages are getting traction when in fact you're just gaming the system.

Frankly, it's about time.

Originally the thought that links from sites in the same market generally meant a vote of acceptance or confidence in your site pages was a valid one. Why wouldn't it be? Based on a shared set of commonalities across a given market, linking between sites is a natural act. This is the web, afterall.

I'm sure the practice has been going on since day one, but why should your pages get any juice from completely unrelated pages in unrelated markets/niches to the point where the search engine would raise your pages credibility index and hence their rankings? That is inherently counter-productive and misleading.

So if the SEs are getting to the point where they have to re-evaluate the practice of blindly giving links any importance in the equation so be it. The gaming of the system has probably reached the tipping point and can no longer be ignored.

5K artificial backlinks should be worth exactly what they are worth. Nothing. They serve no purpose other than to artificially inflate your web cred and in most cases they have very little tangible value to those folks searching for information on the web. In fact the opposite is true in many cases due to the fact that your pages rank not for actual value to the serps, but rather contrived value to the ranking system.

~Bill

Sorry but this is utter nonsense. The "relative" links "notion".

So if I have a website on lets say ... Insurance ... Lets call it auto insurance. How can an algo know, that an article I write on my auto insurance specific blog about an iPhone App is "relevant"? Or the article on Pet insurance, or Proposition 103 or .....

My Horse care blog that mentions certain Diatomaceous earth products?

I usually find those most vocally expressing disdain for link spam are those that either:

1. Have a blog or forum that is a spam victim.

2. Are routinely having their "article spam" getting it's ass kicked in the serps.

SPAM is spam. Please dont try and pawn off article spam on homeopathetic acne cures, puppy potty training, or breast augmentation to 800 article "directories" as acceptable behavior because the adsense whore article directories allow you to spam them. 80% of the articles in EZA are pure tripe and backlink fodder.

Lets not fall too far off our high horses here.

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by adesbarats

I’ve been diligently working to build my in-bound linking starting back in March. I started with about 300+ links at that time.

I purchased a 5k backlink packet from Jeremy Kelsall and have also been working myself to compliment that package with my own backlink work through press releases, article writing and profile linking.

My links were steadily and consistently rising (I use Yahoo Site Explorer to assess links).

Yesterday I was over 900+ links. Today I dropped to 371 links! I checked my competition and see that they also dropped links – one dropped by 36%, the other by 42%.

Has anyone else noticed a similar, significant drop in links? Any idea what just happened?

This used to happen to me with YSE with more frequency. I noticed my backlinks count is down today as well. I responded in another thread - its common for this to happen. Do not panic - they will come back.

YSE routinely flushes its database/index of links. I suspect they are going to re add them after they re-crawl those pages - provided the links are still there. Besides - its really not all that important what YSE finds anyways. Google will never show you all of the links they are counting anyways. Most of the external tools use YSE as their primary source for inlinks, and they trace and track them from there. YSE info should be used as a yardstick anyways.

Ive gone from over 2k links in YSE to approx 300 ... then in < 7 days back to where I was. I usspect you are experiencing the same re-indexing process we all are.

I find it funny though ... the backlink haters took this query as an opportunity to voice their disdain. I wonder if they would have just put that same effort into yet another 300 word pile of excrement on curing acne that so many refer to as quality content ... clogging up googles index, if they would have made a sale or ... just been overtaken in the serps by a person building backlinks?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

[rjaf]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Sorry but this is utter nonsense. The "relative" links "notion".

So if I have a website on lets say ... Insurance ... Lets call it auto insurance. How can an algo know, that an article I write on my auto insurance specific blog about an iPhone App is "relevant"? Or the article on Pet insurance, or Proposition 103 or .....

My Horse care blog that mentions certain Diatomaceous earth products?

I usually find those most vocally expressing disdain for link spam are those that either:

1. Have a blog or forum that is a spam victim.

2. Are routinely having their "article spam" getting it's ass kicked in the serps.

SPAM is spam. Please dont try and pawn off article spam on homeopathetic acne cures, puppy potty training, or breast augmentation to 800 article "directories" as acceptable behavior because the adsense whore article directories allow you to spam them. 80% of the articles in EZA are pure tripe and backlink fodder.

Lets not fall too far off our high horses here.

I salute you, sir!

[oneims]

Checking you backlink with yahoo site explorer will not mean that was your accurate number of backlinks. It will just show sample of your backlinks and not all of it.

[Rocketguy]

I lost over 1000 backlinks on two of my sites. Really weird.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Sorry but this is utter nonsense. The "relative" links "notion".

Hi 4morereferrals,

When you say "relative" links do you also mean to say "relevant links", as in links from relevant pages, pages that contain relevant keywords in or near anchortext? Are relevant links "utter nonsense" in your opinion?

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

How can an algo know, that an article I write on my auto insurance specific blog about an iPhone App is "relevant"?

Isn't this the main purpose of Google's algorithm? They seem to be pretty good at it. Your website topic is not a part of Google's algorithm, they achieve high relevance in SERPs by using a more granular approach. Simply put, they analyze and index individual documents, not websites.

If you'd like a demonstration of how well they can do this, and how quickly they can do it, simply enter the URL, where your article about an iPhone App is placed on your blog about auto insurance, into the AdWords Keyword Tool. This nifty tool uses the core "relevancy" algorithm to instantly analyse your page, finds most of the important keywords that are "relevant" to that individual page and even automatically sorts them by relevance. That last part is very significant, it demonstrates their ability to determine the degree of relevancy for each individual word.

That portion of the algorithm calculates and scores the on-page relevancy factors. The calculation for relevancy of inbound links is performed in a similar fashion, allowing for the different contextual application of proximity and prominence (core principals of Google's algorithm). This slightly different approach applies more weight to the anchortext followed closely by the words near the anchor that links to the indexed page, since those elements are closer in proximity and promenance, relative to the indexed page.

Google's algorithm is not only able to tell that your article is relevant, (absolute value), it is able to determine the degree of relevance (relative value). Google's superior application of the principals of prominence and proximity are part of their core competency. This effective approach produces a relatively high degree of relevancy in their query results and has led to their dominant position in the search engine industry..

I think some folks may be too quick to dismiss the importance that relevance plays in earning high SERP rankings. Backlinks without relevance may pass PR value, but PR alone wont get you ranked. That value must be channeled through a relevant link before you will get any increase in the relevancy score used to sort your position on the SERP.

I believe if we choose to look at relevance from a webmaster's perspective we may fail to see how a search engine determines relevancy. For us to be effective at SEO it may be helpful to understand relevancy from the perspective of the search engines. Does it matter what you or I call relevant, or irrelevant? Or is it more important to understand what Google considers to be relevant?

Google, nor any other major search engine, uses website topics to determine relevance. The primary reason search engines exist is because a more granular approach was needed to go beyond limitations of a website directory organized by website topic.

Many of the earliest search engines used meta tags, but these were not used universally, and were frequently abused. Google revolutionized the industry by developing an engine that read the visible content of a web page and analyzed the relevant keywords contained within the content. This ability combined with the ability to determine relevant inbound links, weighted by popularity (PageRank), to form a relevancy score that is used to sort the listings of the SERP. This same core concept is still at the root of Google's algorithm today.

[ecoverbee20]

I have noticed all my backlinks have gone down today yet my site has finally risen from 4-6 to #2 in google.com

so maybe all the other sites had irrelevant links on them and they have suffered

thanks
andy

[Jacob Martus]

All the quality content in the world won't get you a single backlink if NOBODY sees it in the first place. In order to get your content seen you've got to build backlinks.

I really like what Mike Anthony had to say here. I have yet to see anyone make a useful recommendation other than provide quality content. Ok, did that, provided quality content. No one has found my quality content though...what do I do now?

Some people, I won't mention names bash link building...and then recommend spamming article directories with COMPLETELY DUPLICATE articles.

Very hypocritical if you ask me.

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

YAWN,

Another thread with people defending backlinking on one side and people cheering on the sidelines against it. Isn't this like the fifth or sixth thread like this of neither side providing anything of substance? Haven't gotten it out of your system yet?

Move along people. I'm probably the most hated person on this board for going up against mass link spamming, I can think of about three full automated link sellers (umm no make that four) that practically foam at the mouth just seeing my name (and yeah I sold a backlink system here as well). But honestly theres quite a few of you that never come into the seo section to help anybody with SEO. The only time you comment on SEO is to throw gasoline on the fire on the subject of backlinks. ALl you want to do is vent and feel superior.

Time to move on and help newbies get reeducated on how to do white hat link building. We've had several posts lashing out. Its getting old. The rules are the rules and Google and the SEs will do what they have to do. Lets be constructive. You can't and shouldn't defend link spam on these boards but whats the purpose of the rants against it. How many threads does it take especially when people ask you your alternatives and all you can give is that it isn't your area or you don't rely on SEO? Some of you have been around long enough to have known this was going into the SEO section.

You are never here in any of the posts I and others have started to help newbies with white hat SEO. Those threads just fall off the front page. You are here to curse the darkness but you seldom are here to light it.

MIKE, you are indeed the SEO zippin Crusader!

My goodness...

MAN... you bring the FIRE!

You are the spokesman for SEO

You are the vanguard for SEO

The first thing I thought after reading your post was: we need to make Mike the...

SEO Commissioner

No I really mean this! With your passion, stance, vim and vigor and ability to passionately articulate your position, you can potentially clear up and clean this entire SEO backlinking mess within days as the SEO Commish.

I think you should go for it and that is said respectfully.

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

This used to happen to me with YSE with more frequency. I noticed my backlinks count is down today as well. I responded in another thread - its common for this to happen. Do not panic - they will come back.

YSE routinely flushes its database/index of links. I suspect they are going to re add them after they re-crawl those pages - provided the links are still there. Besides - its really not all that important what YSE finds anyways. Google will never show you all of the links they are counting anyways. Most of the external tools use YSE as their primary source for inlinks, and they trace and track them from there. YSE info should be used as a yardstick anyways.

Ive gone from over 2k links in YSE to approx 300 ... then in < 7 days back to where I was. I usspect you are experiencing the same re-indexing process we all are.

I find it funny though ... the backlink haters took this query as an opportunity to voice their disdain. I wonder if they would have just put that same effort into yet another 300 word pile of excrement on curing acne that so many refer to as quality content ... clogging up googles index, if they would have made a sale or ... just been overtaken in the serps by a person building backlinks?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

@ 4morereferrals, I've come up with a solution to those who have issues with backlinks. I'll be starting a service that monitors all backlinks to their websites in Real Time. The moment any backlink, whether it be anchored text, a straight URL, No Follow or Do Follow, profile link, blog link, article link, forum link is attached to any of their websites - this software will immediately notify the offending site that created the rogue backlink and push to terminate that backlink within 48 hours or less.

Quick survey...

How many people would sign up for this service? And, how much would you pay per month?

Whose coming with me? Let's start something real and something fun.

YouTube - Come with me

[adesbarats]

Pure genius Crew Chief! I have no doubt there are certain folks in this thread who are grabbing for their credit cards right now. You shoulda thrown a 1-800 number up here!

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

MIKE, you are indeed the SEO zippin Crusader!

My goodness...

MAN... you bring the FIRE!

You are the spokesman for SEO

You are the vanguard for SEO

The first thing I thought after reading your post was: we need to make Mike the...

SEO Commissioner

No I really mean this! With your passion, stance, vim and vigor and ability to passionately articulate your position, you can potentially clear up and clean this entire SEO backlinking mess within days as the SEO Commish.

I think you should go for it and that is said respectfully.



@ 4morereferrals, I've come up with a solution to those who have issues with backlinks. I'll be starting a service that monitors all backlinks to their websites in Real Time. The moment any backlink, whether it be anchored text, a straight URL, No Follow or Do Follow, profile link, blog link, article link, forum link is attached to any of their websites - this software will immediately notify the offending site that created the rogue backlink and push to terminate that backlink within 48 hours or less.

Quick survey...

How many people would sign up for this service? And, how much would you pay per month?

Whose coming with me? Let's start something real and something fun.


YouTube - Come with me

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

@ 4morereferrals, I've come up with a solution to those who have issues with backlinks. I'll be starting a service that monitors all backlinks to their websites in Real Time. The moment any backlink, whether it be anchored text, a straight URL, No Follow or Do Follow, profile link, blog link, article link, forum link is attached to any of their websites - this software will immediately notify the offending site that created the rogue backlink and push to terminate that backlink within 48 hours or less.

I WILL GO WITH YOU

IF I can have the upgrade package. It must NUKE any and ALL backlinks. In content, article everything. that way there is ZERO chance at spam. None.

However in the true spirit of giving back to the community I will not use it on any of my sites (or my paying clients). It will be my free gift. I don't hold grudges so I am even prepared to pay for my other competitors in serps.

I might sound all rough on the outside but I am a teddy bear on the inside. Thats just how I roll.

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Some people, I won't mention names bash link building...and then recommend spamming article directories with COMPLETELY DUPLICATE articles.

Very hypocritical if you ask me.

Perhaps you talking about Web syndication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia?

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Perhaps you talking about Web syndication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia?

I should have been more specific. Spamming the exact same articles that hundreds of other people are using. Basically, taking some PLR or some other content that is in the hands of hundreds of people and submitting it to article directories as is.

I know the benefits of web syndication, I just wasn't specific enough. Thanks!

[efex]

Well. I'm a newbie and I'm on this post reading because I also got all my little backlinks down from 50+ to 10+

I wanted to know why that happened and someone pointed me to this thread.
It's true it started to deviate to a personal discussion on the backlinking and I hope it won't cause I had to read all of that to get to the good posts

So, I've learned here that YSE can do that and reduce your links whenever it wants. And others said that it even dodn't show all the backllinks for real in first place. (I could agree with that because it wasn't showing all my article's links from EZA and GOA)

The question I have is how do I know that SE's are looking at my links? Only by the rankings? But what happens if I still have some work to do until I get reasonable rankings? how do I know then if my links are counting? (I am talking about good links as articles, yahoo videos,e tc)
Is there a way to count my links for sure??

thanks

PS: forgive my english as it's not my main language