Google: Correctly Counting Links On The Web Is Technically Impossible

Sep 13, 2019 - 6:59 am 1 by
Filed Under Link Building

Google Counting Links

John Mueller from Google said on Twitter "counting links on the web correctly is technically impossible, and everyone just makes different approximations & assumptions." This is in response to third-party link tools not matching up or looking inaccurate.

As you know, the web and web pages across the web are not perfect. So analyzing something that is not perfect, have markup issues, and bugs, can be challenging, to say the least. Google does it, Bing does it, search engines do it and third-party tools that analyze the search results or web pages do it as well.

What John is saying is that this is a hard problem to solve, each company that tries has to make their own "approximations & assumptions" and thus, there is no correct answer to measuring links on the web.

Here are those tweets:

Russ from Moz responded in a similar fashion:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 11, 2025

Jul 11, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Helpful Content Recoveries With Core Update, AI Mode Expands, Hidden Ad Terms & Fewer Ad Clicks

Jul 11, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google Maps

Google Local & Business Profiles Drops June 25th - Reporting Glitch?

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Tests Zoom Effect In On Images Within Search Results

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Search Image Box Tests Explore Image & Visual Search Buttons

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:31 am
Bing Search

Microsoft Bing Tests Delivery Truck Icon In Search Ads

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: It Was Google Take Your Parents To Work Day