How often does the WMT incoming links gets updated?
-
Hi,
We made some drastic changes removing links (mainly resulted from one domain) and wondered when we should expect a change in the incoming links report of Google's WMT...?
Thanks
-
Hey There
Unfortunately I have seen the same issues as Chris and Anthony describe - and that is it's never clear how updated the data is in WMT.
In theory I believe Google needs to crawl the page(s) the backlinks were on, see they are no longer there, and propagate that to your WMT account. I do know that for the disavow tool, Google has said it can take them up to 6 months to process all the sites in your file. So who know, perhaps it's an equally long time range for removing links and seeing them disappear from the link report.
Anyhow - I do have a small tip. For any link cleanup we have done, we keep a very detailed spreadsheet of all the links and a status on action and result. So when you pull new link reports from any tool (WMT, Moz, Majestic etc) you can compare that to your spreadsheet and eliminate duplicates or links you have already dealt with.
Also, one fast way to check several hundred links at once is to put the links in a .txt file, and upload to Screaming Frog in 'list' more - and crawl all of them with a filter looking for your domain name. This will tell you a) what linking pages don't even exist anymore (404) and b) if you still have a link on them.
If you want something even more robust at managing links, perhaps look into BuzzStream - http://www.buzzstream.com/ - I haven't used it myself (yet, but may do so soon) and I hear it's good to keep track of links.
-Dan
Hope that helps!
-
Im not sure the inbound links in GWT is ever accurate. Ive worked with several sites that had links removed over a year ago and they still show up in GWT. Even when linked site no longer existed. I guess such is the penalty for sites that once violated Googles TOS.
I think this would also delay the fixing of an algorythmic penalty if GWT hasnt recognized the newly revised or more accurate inbound links.
-
Beytznet,
I think it is generally accept by those who have tried to determine an update interval for almost anything GWT-related is that one cannot be determined. It seems to happen when it happens and I think we're supposed to be happy with that.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Reasonable to Ask URL of Link from SEO Providing New Links before Link Activation?
My firm has hired an SEO to create links to our site. We asked the SEO to provide a list of domains that they are targeting for potential links. The SEO did not agree to this request on the grounds that the list is their unique intellectual property. Alternatively I asked the SEO to provide the URL that will be linking to our site before the link is activated. The SEO did not agree to this. However, they did say we could provide comments afterwards so they could tweak their efforts when the next 4-5 links are obtained next month. The SEO is adamant that the links will not be spam. For whatever it is worth the SEO was highly recommended. I am an end user; the owner and operator of a commercial real estate site, not an SEO or marketing professional. Is this protectiveness over process and data typical of link building providers? I want to be fair with the provider and hope I will be working with them a long time, however I want to ensure I receive high quality links. Should I be concerned? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Does Navigation Bar have an effect on the link juice and the number of internal links?
Hi Moz community, I am getting the "Avoid Too Many Internal Links" error from Moz for most of my pages and Google declared the max number as 100 internal links. However, most of my pages can't have internal links less than 100, since it is a commercial website and there are many categories that I have to show to my visitors by using the drop down navigation bar. Without counting the links in the navigation bar, the number of internal links is below 100. I am wondering if the navigation bar links affect the link juice and counted as internal links by Google. The Same question also applies to the links in the footer. Additionally, how about the products? I have hundreds of products in the category pages and even though I use pagination I still have many links in the category pages (probably more than 100 without even counting the navigation bar links). Does Google count the product links as internal links and how about the effect on the link juice? Here is the website if you want to take a look: http://www.goldstore.com.tr Thank you for your answers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onurcan-ikiz0 -
Recovery after recent Google update
Hi guys. This is somewhat a continuation for this topic: https://moz.com/community/q/january-2016-massive-rankings-fluctuations After that update, several of our clients and our website as well have experienced high fluctuation rankings period, which ended up in huge drops - 10-20 spots. Which, obviously, made everyone unhappy. Anybody knows what exactly the change was about? What should we fix/take a look at, analyze again? We aren't using any shady techniques or black hat. Everything is honest. All metrics, number of backlinks etc are going up, no major changes have been recently made. Please, help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DmitriiK0 -
Disadvantages of linking to uncompressed images?
Images are compressed and resized to fit into an article, but each image in the article links to the original file - which in some cases is around 5Mb. The large versions of the images are indexed in Google. Does this decrease the website's crawl budget due to the time spent downloading the large files? Does link equity disappear through the image links? Either way I don't think it's a very good user experience if people click on the article images to see the large images - there's no reason for the images to be so large. Any other thoughts? Thanks. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alex-Harford0 -
How hard would it be to take a well-linked site, completely change the subject matter & still retain link authority?
So, this would be taking a domain with a domain authority of 50 (200 root domains, 3500 total links) and, for fictitious example, going from a subject matter like "Online Deals" to "The History Of Dentistry"... just totally unrelated new subject for the old/re-purposed domain. The old content goes away entirely. The domain name itself is a super vague .com name and has no exact match to anything either way. I'm wondering, if the DNS changed to different servers, it went from 1000 pages to a blog, ownership/contacts stayed the same, the missing pages were 301'd to the homepage, how would that fare in Google for the new homepage focus and over what time frame? Assume the new terms are a reasonable match to the old domain authority and compete U.S.-wide... not local or international. Bonus points for answers from folks who have actually done this. Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Linking and non-linking root domains
Hi, Is there any affect on SEO based on the ratio of linking root domains to non-linking root domains and if so what is the affect? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | halloranc0 -
Does the home page must get the biggest amount of internal links?
Hi All, I have an e-commerce website with thousands of unique pages. The site is built with quick access through the navigation bar to the main product categories. All of the product pages have navigation trees in them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
What happened is that in one of the main categories I have so many pages (products) that it actually gets more links than the home page - it is getting the links both from the menu (in each page in the site) and from the product pages that belong to that category whereas the homepage gets only the one link from the menu. Is that OK or should I add a level in the navigation tree that points to the homepage? Thanks0 -
Mozpoints not updating
Added 2 comments on 2 questions and my points are still at the same level. Anyone knows why? I don't.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mosaicpro0