Link Churn - where have all my links gone?

[robertrRSwalters]

I am sure most of you have asked yourself the question I'm asking right now..

Where have all my links gone?

I am starting to get twitchy now. I would estimate we have lost around 60% of our links in the past 3 weeks.

Does anyone have any comeback stories?

Feel like I am back to the start again.

I have made a number of changes on the site not least removing a reciprical link page.. that had over 200 links on it but from reading one of Rand's tweets is it true that linking out could be good again?

[SteveOllington]

Hmm, now this is why I don't put too much effort into measuring the numbers of incoming links. The ones that are counted in some places, aren't counted in others, and the numbers skew the value as people think in terms of quantity rather than quality... then there's the fact that they jump up and down like Madonna's pants anyway.

I tried a whole bunch of different ways before concluding we don't yet seem to be of an age where we can track them, at least not to any level of reliability or significance for taking actions on them.

[robertrRSwalters]

They have just dropped off a cliff somewhere..

They are not indexed with OSE

I kind of get the impression Majestic is just dredging up links and all sorts from its fresh link data.

It's kind of heart breaking to be honest. Oh well another day tomorrow.

[blackballonline]

Linking out is good if it is done in support of your content and the link points to trusted and valuable relevant content. (i.e. links that lend weigh to your pages' content) A page with a list of links with no textual context tend to be a flag for the Search Engines. (remember the days of the reciprocal link and link farms)

When you say your links are gone, do you mean your links in OSE? Or have companies taken down links to you for another reason?

Comeback story  - JC Penney has had their status reinstated in Google after a 90 day penalty and fixing up some things.