When google did its last PR update about 3 weeks ago, some reported seeing a drop in the number of backlinks even though PR results went up. It looks to me like the Google Serps are still rolled back to the prior update due to the reduction in the number of backlinks and the fact that only recently targeted search terms (ones that have had links built since the last update) are still being effected. Is anyone else still seeing this?
I see variable results. PR is down across 90 sites, backlinks down, ranking droppage... on and on. Of course DP is never accurate anymore so I have to check rankings manually.
What I am seeing is: 1. an increase in PR 2. a decrease in backlinks (that brings them back to where they were before the last update) 3. A decrease in SERPS only for terms that have built links recently. Older terms are unaffected This all leads me to believe that this is the typical 3-5 week temporary dip that comes with updates while Google relies at least partially on old results. I just wanted to see if that is what other people are concluding.
I think Google has been making some tweaks to their algorithm based on how they value backlinks such as the Googlebombing change and maybe LocalRank. That may be why you are seeing lower backlinks reported by Google although it's still a mystery what links are displayed in Google with the link command since they say it's just a sample. Nonetheless, the number of backlinks reported still seems to be loosely proportional to the importance of the site. I'm not seeing any evidence of a rollback and they now do data refreshes every 3-4 days instead of once a month so there will be more fluctuation going on since they did this recently.
I am checking backlinks using the standard Link: command in Google. I am of course fully aware of the fact that this does not return the actual number of links. The same day that the PR update happened, I saw a roughly 35% decrease in the number of backlinks showing up in Google, which I know that some other people reported. At the same time, the most recent gains in SERPS when down. I have seen this behavior on the last couple of PR updates. After about a month, there is always a sudden uptick in SERPS that seems to correspond to eliminating a rollback that had been precluding the most recent SERP gains. I am of course speculating as to what is acutally going on, which is why I am wondering if others see this type of behavior.
Google have added a larger sample of back totals to their webmaster tools service, if you'd like to get a more accurate back link value for your site.
Yahoo site explorer seems to be the most accurate way to try and count links. Or you can use a tool like arelis to count links that all SEs spit out.
It's kind of google shake up again. I see very different results on various data centers right now. Some of tham like many weeks old.
Yea it's google shake up. I have mentioned on other threads that out of 45,000 pages indexed, 98% of it went to the supplemental results. The only good thing that happened to my site this month is the increased PR and keyword rankings went up. Never did any blackhat. But still keeping my fingers crossed that things will go back the way it used to be.
As of today I am seeing some of the SERPs go back up. The backlinks are still reporting the same lower number, but it does now look as though this has been just another Google rollback that lasts from 3-5 weeks.