Should We Watch Backlink Updates at Google.com Anymore?
A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a lot of recent discussion on a Google backlink update occurring at certain datacenters. But should we be watching these changes anymore?
We now have the Google Webmaster Central Link Tool that gives us all of our backlinks.
Does tracking link:domain.com changes at Google.com, as opposed to tracking our linkage data at Webmaster Central add anything?
In the past, link updates symbolized a Google Dance - a shift in rankings that occurred about once a month. Not ranking changes happen all the time. So is there a benefit to tracking these changes anymore?
We all know Google only shows a random sample of your links with the link command. So again, why track it?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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rustybrick in Google PageRank/SERP Updates at March 21, 2007 7:54 AM
Comments (2)
Comments
I do think it's an absolute waste of time to check the backlinks reported through the google link: command. It doesn't mean a thing.
Then again, I don't think checking google PR across data centers is worth our time either. That does mean something, but the real metric is the amount of visitors a site gets. I am interested to see what queries people use to get to my site, and whether I can increase that number per query or in general. Backlinks are a numbers game. Since most links that get reported are probably worth very little for the actual rankings, I wonder what looking at them actually teaches. More interesting is: who is not linking to this site that should be?
Posted by Katinka Hesselink at March 21, 2007 14:59