google backlinks messed up ?

[sadman]

I just noticed that # of backlinks is coming weird. Also pr looks shaky. Can someone tell me if there are server probs at Google or a major update is taking place ?
Sadman

[Bill]

I think it's some kind of server problem.

This has happened before, and when it did, it was server issues. Once I believe it was some kind of DDOS attack.

Nothin to do but wait it out.

[ronnie]

If your checking your back links in google itself, dont bother. It has'nt been correct in like forever anyways, wheither the servers are going good or not. Yahoo usually shows a more accurate count.

ronnie

[SEO_Konsul]

google has problems with their capacity

[Ledfish]

Actually, they stopped showing all backlinks and backlinks of a specific type to make it harder for you to catch up to your competition by adding some mystery when it came to exactly which backlinks were helping someone rise to the top

[sadman]

I wasn't using Google itleslf for backlinks, but the tools from rustybrick. Anybody has an idea how different are the results compared to Google ?
Sadman

[ronnie]

Originally Posted by sadman

I wasn't using Google itleslf for backlinks, but the tools from rustybrick. Anybody has an idea how different are the results compared to Google ?
Sadman

Depends on what the tool uses to check back links. Most tools use a search engine to give you data. If it uses google to check back links, should'nt be any different than if you checked in google yourself, which would be way off.

ronnie

[Linkster]

Backlinks as mentioned already havent been right on Google since a year ago - and they did it on purpose after it was suggested at one of the conferences by a member of a major SEO msg board - Google liked the idea and implemented it - this also affects all of the tools that query Google for thier backlinks

Yahoo on the other hand is a closer representation of your actual backlinks count

The PR bar has been a useless tool for at least the last year as well - probably closer to two years now - it hasnt reflected the true page rank of a page in that long - and rumours are saying that it may completely go away with the new issue of the toolbar coming up

SEO_Konsul - Id be interested in knowing where you got your information or are you just spouting off things youve heard somewhere else? Making statements without at least a reference to their source as a matter of fact is rather unprofessional in my opinion.

[Bill]

I noticed the odd backlinks thing beginning at the same time that the memorial day graybar did.

At first I thought the most likley explanation was a server problem.

But, as the hours go by, I figure there's only one likely explantion left - google engineers at work.

I don't keep a strict list of google news, but didn't google report something like a ddos attack that caused system wide graybars, lasting about 3 hours, about 3-4 weeks ago? At first I thought this was a repeat of that event.

[Linkster]

Bill - the backlinks have been that way since about Aug of last year - they have never reported all of the backlinks but back then they decided to not show the important backlinks and just show the junky ones in an attempt to stop the purchasing of backlinks
The second factor is that they have changed the way they show results for the site: command which changed last month - they no longer show the 302 sites that are scraping you - that was their answer to the scraping problem

the PR has been rumoured to be going away from the toolbar - they are getting ready to implement trustrank and have a new toolbar ready to release according to the trusted people I know "within"

they have recently (last week or so during the update) also updated the directory to show the new pageranks so those seem to be accurate

[DangerDave]

What Linkster said...

Backlinks(as is PR) has not been an accurate or total for many months.

DD
PS - and it has nothing at all to do with capacity!

[Bill]

I'm not talking about that, Linkster, of course I know about the big change in backlinks, the so-called "random backlinks" display, that started last year.

What I think the original poster sadman is talking about is a specific, very recent strangeness in the backlinks that started just this friday.

He's not the only one who has mentioned it, I've seen it mentioned on other seo + adult boards. Started a few hours before the bar went gray.

[Bill]

Oh, and the google cache server went down at the same time... for me it was sometime late friday night/sat morning.

And, I'm sure many of you guys have seen this, but it's interesting anyway...

The new ad for the new google toolbar has a graphic that doesn't include the PR meter on the bar.

http://toolbar.google.com/

This has caused a lot of speculation, too.

[Linkster]

Unfortunately they still show it in their features for the new bar
http://www.google.com/support/toolba...=features.html

The cache servers problem has been an off and on problem over the last week - my own opinion is they are testing a way to show an image of the pages indexed without caching - to help avoid 2257 and the new DMCA (coming soon) issues that the present system has

[Linkster]

Bill - the only difference I can see on the backlinks is that they have done a backlinks update to the "displayed" backlinks in the last few days - most of my sites show an increase although not anywhere near the real count

[Bill]

I gather Googleguy has said that this wasn't trustrank, just some infrastructure change. (whatever that means...)

His exact words:
"no trustrank, just back to the normal display.
I talked to a few people and there was some new infrastructure that was swapping in. They expect normal toolbar pagerank display to resume in a few hours--no need for concern."

That's too bad, I was kind of looking forward to a big change like trustrank.

Linkster, I didn't actually see the backlinks changes for myself, I don't pay that much attention to backlinks, since they buggered it with "random display" last year. But, I noticed the memorial day weekend graybar thing happening, and starting reading around for possible explanations, and noted that people were talking about backlinks suddenly showing much lower numbers than usual for a few hours just before the bar went gray. (and also talking about the cache server being down)

So, when sadman mentioned seeing backlinks and pr changes, I tied them together, and suggested first a server problem, then google engineers at work.

But I was much more interested in the graybar than the backlinks. Google gutted backlinks, as far as I'm concerned.

When did this backlinks increase you mention happen? Just now, this weekend, or during the last recent update?

[Linkster]

Bill - I noticed the change today - although it could just be a difference due to what datacenters Im hitting - since the changes where they rotate the datacenters a few months ago I really havent spent a lot of time looking at them but it was an increase of about 10% over what I saw two days ago. Again it could very well be just a difference in the datacenters as I know they definitely keep totally different databases flowing on them