What causes total external links to fluctuate so much?
-
On my dashboard, external links refers to links on other websites pointing to my own website, correct?
If so, I'm seeing some interesting data on my report this week. Apparently I have 129 external links. This is down by 380. What the heck happened here? I've been doing nothing differently, just chugging along, producing good content. What on earth would cause 380 links to my website just up and disappear?
I'm also tracking a competitor. This competitor currently has 3,262 external links. But this is up by 1,900 from the previous update. What the heck happened here? I know it's probably impossible to tell for sure, but what could have caused such a meteoric growth in my competitor? I can see if they already had 50,000 and they increased by 1.9k, but 1.9k is a significant fraction of their current external links.
-
It's pretty likely it's the index. This one was quite a bit smaller than the last, so a lot of URLs are missing. That affects link metrics like PA/DA, as well. Patrick's link to Moz Health and Rand's Q&A post will give you more information.
Do your due diligence, of course—it's possible that the issue _isn't _the update. But if nothing else has changed for you, that's the most likely explanation.
-
Hello,
I experienced the same exact thing this week. Results seem off, so I'm with Patrick on this one. I'm hopeful it's related to some of the issues that Moz is having.
-Alex
-
Hi there
According to Moz Health, there have been some update issues happening lately; that could be one of the reasons why your link numbers have changed.
Just keep an eye on this. Rand also has an update in the Q+A section as well.
Hope this helps - good luck!
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
-
Does an external link to an image file on my site help my SEO?
I found a few websites that are displaying images from my site. Curiously, they have also linked these images to the source image file on my website. I found these because Moz showed these sites in my list of backlinks. I assume that means it impacts my Domain Authority. But does this actually help me in search engines since it's not linking to a page on my site?
Link Building | | AlexLenhoff0 -
Manual Links Vs. Smart Links
Hey Everybody, Is there any downside to the smart link plugins that I see all over wordpress? Basically in short I enter a keyword and where I want that link to go (primarily internal) and set the parameters of repetition etc and it automatically adds the link to that. Now other than the obvious situation where it might put a link in an awkward place, is there anything wrong with this sort of software? Part of me things that this sort of software would not be liked by Google, and that it isn't really getting counted as a true link, but i wanted to see if there were other thoughts or experience with this.
Link Building | | HashtagHustler0 -
Handling External links to articles in a blog
I have a blog that has it's own articles but then also want to feature third-party sites that have my op-ed content on them. Wondering what is the best practice for handling external links. The reason we want to do this: Make sure our followers and people who subscribe to our blog see all our content (especially when a third-party "high authority" publisher is featuring articles from our authors We also want to be able to get a ranking for the article title when someone searches for it on Search Engines. i.e I write an article for hubspot called "my article about something". When googling "my article about something" I want to see both the Hubspot listing (where my article originated on) as well as a link to my website where I show an abstract (original abstract) and then the link links to the hubspot article. For example: www.myblog.com/listing (renders a listing of articles with links to each individual article) If showing an "abstract" for the blog article and then linking out to the third-party source (where content is featured) www.myblog.com/category/post-title (renders actual article page) When showing an individual post-title page what are the minimum requirements (META TAGS, length or amount of characters ,etc) Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | dspete0 -
Thoughts on creating a resource/recommend links page in order to attain links?
Hey guys, Just wondering, how does Google view reciprocal link building nowadays? I've heard in the past that it's something that Google isn't particularly keen on. However, more recently, I've also read that - as long as the links are decent (and in moderation) - link exchanging is by no means a bad thing. The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of creating a "resource/recommended links page" for a client of mine. Because of their industry, it's really apparent that attaining links is often only possible if there is the opportunity of a reciprocal link in return. Therefore, I'd need to have a resource/recommend links page of my own. Is this something I should go ahead with to make it much easier to attain links? Or should I try to avoid reciprocal links and attempt to pinpoint one-way linking opportunities - even if they're thin on the ground? Any help much as appreciated as always. Cheers.
Link Building | | Webrevolve0 -
How much is too much?
I am aware that Google's Penguin 2.0 update is looking to tackle the increasing numbers of links from poor quality websites & blogs. The advice since Penguin 1.0 has been to create a natural backlink profile, ensuring that there is a balance between keywords-rich anchor text and brand terms. I tend to link using Branded anchor text to the homepage of my website and use keyword anchor text sparingly to link to subpages/categories elsewhere on my website. My question is what exactly is too much in terms of anchor text? If for example I have 5 or 6 keyword-rich links inbound to a sub/category page, do I need to also get some brand anchor text into these sub/category pages too?
Link Building | | DHS_SH0 -
Advetorial links
How do you scientifically value advertorial links. I have a site who is willing to buy advertorial in large online sites which will contain links. (I would prefer they invested in content on their own site). The DA on these sites is universally extremely strong. the PA of the examples I've seen is pretty low. The site has strong DA matching it's main competition and is performing pretty well in terms of ranking. Question: how do you value this kind of link in terms of the amount of £ the publications want to charge. Anybody have a formula or a logical process which would provide solid advice rather than don't infringe Google's T&C's which I've already mentioned to them. Any thoughts appreciated.
Link Building | | Shivvyt0 -
There is a New link to my Site but I can see it on link report ?why ?
Hi I found out using link campaign and Open site explorer that my competitors where getting links from this page http://www.visitgreece.gr/en/activities/land_sports/golf So I conatc the admins and added our golf courses too Is the dunes and the bay course in the middle of the page But this happened 3 weeks ago and still this linking domain is not appaering in my campaign why is that any ideas ? does it take so much time to appera to SEOmoz ? Or the problem is because they are linking 2 diffrent sites ? my site is www.costanavarinogolf.com Thanks a lot in advance for your help
Link Building | | grzontan0 -
Outsourcing Link Building - What Low LEvel Links Should One Start With 1st
Outsourcing Link Building - What Low Level Links Should I start with if my interest is get free immediate traffic as a direct result from placing links or what ever out there and what should I outsource 1st and why ? What questions should I ask my self that will help me determine where I should start with low level links ?
Link Building | | helpwanted0