Has something changed in the Google backlink count?

by 8 replies
9
Has anyone noticed a change in the last few days around the number of site backlinks that Google Webmaster tools is reporting for their sites?

My three sites have all had a massive number of backlinks 'appear' in the webmaster tools that were never shown before. To illustrate just how much of a change: one site only had about 90 links quoted last week and this week has over 500. Another only had 300-400 quoted last week and this week shows over 2800.

I'm not complaining, just wondered whether anyone else noticed this or if it's a recognised occurrence, related to sandboxing or anything???
#search engine optimization #backlink #changed #count #google #webmaster
  • I have noticed it as Google always be wondering new things like nowadays Google updating its Algorithm probably so i was looking for that!
  • Yes I found my links to go from 300 to 900 in the webmaster tool. I also dropped from many keywords close to #1 to nowhere to be seen in the 200 first results, no more traffic, nothing..
    • [1] reply
    • My traffic doesn't seem to have dropped (yet) but I'm intrigued to see what effect, if any, the overnight rise in backlinks will have.
  • Yes I noticed a jump from around 1.3 million to around 2.1 million last week. Though I have started some text ad campaigns with clicksor so that could possibly be the reason for it.
  • Yes I've noticed this too. Many of them are from junky looking search engines I've never heard of.

    But there are now also links that I knew Google had to have known about, but never showed up on webmaster tools before.

    It appears that the new links webmaster tools is showing are lower in quality then the links they had been displaying.
    • [1] reply
    • I would agree about the quality. I've had all sorts of tuppence ha'penny bookmarking sites appear. I shouldn't slag them really, they're still backlinks I suppose.
  • This has happened to me too... kind of scaring the crap out of me. I have one site that's 9 months old that I've barely done anything with. I've social bookmarked a bunch of its pages across some of the main social bookmarking site and posted some articles to some of the main article directory sites.

    Maybe 30-40 links showed up in google webmaster tools.

    Now it's sandboxed with over 200 backlinks that I've never even tried to get links from.
    • [1] reply
    • I have had the same happen to me.

      In the last few days iv dropped about 4 places in all the serps (somesort of penalty issued i reckon)

      I have been rock solid Top for all my keywords as long as i can remember.

      Now overtaken by all the thomson local/yell.com crap

      Most of my extra links appeared from crappy directories supplied data by other directories.

      I feel this may have been a planned mass attack on the DIY optimizer...

      Imagine if the competition (yell/thomson) had actually been supplying your backlink to thousands of cloned and poor sites, but actually kept them off radar until it could release them all at once and sandbox you.

      Its seems far fetched but its a possibility and now they will have companies begging to advertise with them...
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    Has something changed in the Google backlink count?

    Has anyone noticed a change in the last few days around the number of site backlinks that Google Webmaster tools is reporting for their sites? My three sites have all had a massive number of backlinks 'appear' in the webmaster tools that were never shown before. To illustrate just how much of a change: one site only had about 90 links quoted last week and this week has over 500. Another only had 300-400 quoted last week and this week shows over 2800.