when searching my 8 year old website for links it returns a 'no match result' when in fact there are over a thousand links recognised 3 months ago, which still exist today. http://www.google.co.uk/search?sour...GB214GB214&q=link:http://www.cheatextreme.com I still am indexed though with this search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=e...B214&q=site:http://www.cheatextreme.com&meta= 94 pages indexed. It appears google has completely wiped my backlinks after my redesign, is this normal?
One of Google's latest patents mentions this scenario. It says that when a website changes drastically, they shouldn't count previous links. If other people say the links come back eventually, perhaps Google is not quite using this in the algorithm yet.
Thanks guys this is reassuring. although, google seems to be making making a mistake here I believe, I have improved my site and they are now going to rank me lower for this. oh well.