Search engines dropping directories ?

For the past 5 days, my backlinks dropped dramatically. Most of them are from directories.

- Google webmaster tools: dropped from 573 to 362
- Yahoo sites explorer: from 897 to 284

Of couse all my SERPs tanked in conjunction with the drop. Did anyone notice the same ?

-Anika

 

I cant say ive noticed the same to be honest.

 

Yahoo is lower for me. Google gives a sampling only, so i don't bother checking that. Ranks are still ok though, so they are probably just rebuilding their DB.

 

Its called a backlink update (backlink flux) and then PR will be soon afterwards, about 1-2 weeks from now...

So stop stressing and build your back-links

laterz
malcolm

 

What would you do if you were Google? Think about it intuitivly ....would you drop directories who's pupose is to provide backlinks for webmasters to artifically help rankings? I would

Would you drop directories that aim to provide a useful resurce on the web fro the web surfer/visitor? I wouldn't.

99% of the directories promoted on DP are there for the webmaster, so are you surprised that Google may be going after them?

 

I wouldn't be surprise if Google are going after directories. In fact they already did, by reducing the PR of many of them.

I may be surprised if they dropped a bunch of them all together (aka a la banned), so they don't count any back links from them anymore.

Google webmaster tools has been fairly accurate as far as backlinks and I saw a big dropped and just wonder why. I have another site which doesn't rely on directory links at all and it's stable like a rock for the past few months.

Same thing for Yahoo, I think they're working on something similar to Google, by reducing the number of backlinks showed via Site Explorer. I checked some of my competitor and they went from 400k+ backlinks to a few thousands in Yahoo explorer now.

Directories are a good source of cheap one way backlinks. If they decide to reduce or eliminate a bunch of them, it will be a lot harder for new sites to fight against established one and I hope it won't be so.

 

BUT, have they really reduced the PR or just reduced the PR they choose to show us in the toolbar to discourage the use of directories for PR and links purposes

 

They will reduce both for sure. It's a punishment for directories that aren't classed as on-target links by Google.

 

How do you know that? How do you know that they have not kept the internal PR and just changed the display in the toolbar PR to play with us?

 

google make some new change in every pr update, it is getting very common now.

 

If this is true then it looks like we're seeing the next salvo fired against web directories. First PR, then Adsense, now links. I believe this is good for the industry as a whole. The serious web directories will most likely survive and the junk will be removed. The best thing will be that the get rich quick crowd will move on to something else. My only concern is the collateral damage that will be done to some good directories as always happens when the Google monster comes alive.

 

No such thing noticed here.

 

Maybe you didn’t build so well this time around?

My directory links have had a large increase, so I think it’s a Backlinks update.

Don’t worry.

Thanks Brian

 

Yes you are true..............

 

I haven't noticed anything like that till now. Also google or any other search engines drop old backlinks slowly. Its quite natural. If you have backlinks from other sites like blogs/forums etc, you will see the same thing happening there too.

Search engines also drop duplicate/supplemental entries. Try to use diff descriptions for each directory (atleast as much as possible) submission to make them unique.

 

I agree with you, always use different title and description for site.

 

I used to worry about my backlink counts until I researched them. I shared some of my results on my blog in an article entitled Backlink Madness. The title alone should give you a bit of a clue as to my findings.

 

Personally if i see backlinks or pr or serps dropping i do sit up and take notice.

For all 3 its not neccessarily a sign of something to worry about, but sometimes it can be, i know theres a million different reasons why things happen.

But personally i still wonder and will tend to look a little closer just incase when changes like that do happen.

 

is it time for google to re-order PR of directories

 

This thread is about back links not PR.

Back links are still being counted by Yahoo, I did a round of submissions Monday and by Wednesday they were included in my back links on the site explorer.

These things fluctuate so I wouldn't worry about it too much, just keep building links to your web site and it will be fine. Think of it this way, for every time you go and check your back links that could be time spent obtaining a new link.