Google Webmaster Tools not displaying all backlinks
-
I was asked to take a look at a site that a friend redesigned and immediately plummeted in rankings. It was a flash site where the domain redirected to a flash landing page. When the site was redesigned, they removed the flash page and put in the new site on the domain URL without changing the redirect or putting a 301 in place on the old flash landing page URL.
This site didn't have many backlinks to begin with, but it did ok for some important search phrases. Now when I look in Webmaster Tools, there are only 2 backlinks showing. Meanwhile I know there are more backlinks in existence, primarily from yellowpages and citysearch.
I've had them put a 301 on the old flash landing page pointing at the domain URL and they've added a canonical URL. What have I missed here?
-
Agreed, the point I was intending to make was that the WMT backlink info is not a definitive list, therefore it is not reliable resource of all backlinks.
I think it is a common mis-conception that because WMT is a Google product, the information in it must be 100% accurate, where as in reality that isn't the case.
Good point about the Majestic Fresh index, btw
-
A few thoughts - It can take a while for new links to be found by Google. They say it can take a couple of weeks but I've seen links that took months to be found.
Also, does the site have the proper www/non-www redirect in place? If Google thinks the www and non www are two different sites it's possible you're only getting the backlinks to one of those options.
-
Really? I often find that GWT reports a larger number of backlinks than the other tools. I agree that it takes time for the links to disappear once removed. this is where Majestic's fresh index can prove useful.
-
That sounds odd,
As William says, there isn't a tool out there that provides 100% of your backlinks. However, GWT is the most reliable source and usually provides more than any of the other tools (not surprising given Google's index).
I suspect there may be an issue with how it has been setup in GWT. I would go through this with a fine tooth comb to see if there are any issues there.
-
I've never found WMT's a reliable resource for backlink info, often it does not show all backlinks also when backlinks are removed it takes some time for them to disappear.
How recently were the yellow pages and city search links added?
Definitely run the site through OSE, majestic and AHrefs for a better picture as William suggested.
A couple of other things you could check
Go to WMT -> Health -> Crawl Errors to see if any other pages are not found
Check how many pages are being indexed to make sure there are no sitemap issues etc
Hope that helps
-
You may want to try other backlink checkers. I don't believe any tools get 100% backlinks. Use WMT, Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO, and others to get a good number.
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
-
Google Analytics global page empty
Hello, I don't know what happened with my Google Analytics initial page. For around a week I have there all my websites, but they show no results on global page. If I enter on any property I can see everything as normal, just not on the initial page. Screenshot: http://imgur.com/JKFVIh4 For sure I changed anything that I shouldn't. Perhaps you know what's wrong? Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | prozis0 -
How long does Google Analytics credit a source?
I was under the impression that GA credits the source with a conversion if it is the source for the current session but it seems that if the user returns later that the source may still be credited. Is this the case? How long does GA credit a source?
Reporting & Analytics | | bearpaw1 -
Google Analtyics during site redesign
Hi, We will be launching a new redesign for our website. There will be new URLs and navigation and almost everything (except for static pages like about and contact) will be different. The overwhelming opinion seems to say that it's important to keep the same Google Analytics profile. How can we compare the past URLs to the new ones if they are completely different. Does anyone have any experience in this? Did you create any segmentation? Thanks 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | WSteven0 -
Webmaster Tools vs. Google Trends data doesn't add up
I am investigating a two-month 25% drop in organic traffic from Google to a client's site. When I turned to the Webmaster Tools data for the site, there is a clear, gradual drop over the course of a couple months both in impressions and clicks. In general, the drop occurred across many pages and for a large number of queries; there wasn't a core group of keywords or pages that saw the drop...it was more sitewide. Yet, the average rankings reported by WMT were, for the top 100 or so landing pages, not significantly different. The site hosts information about medical conditions, and I wouldn't expect any time-related variations in search volume, and this was confirmed by looking at Google Trends data for a number of the top keywords. I started to look at the data by query for all the top keywords (all ranked in the top 10), and saw the following general trend: impressions were down, rankings stayed in the top 10, and Google Trends showed either flat or rising volumes. So I am trying to make sense of that. If the search volume trend did not decline and rankings held inside the top 10, then how could the number of impressions drop significantly? Am I trusting the WMT data too much? But the reality is that the volume of traffic measured by Google Analytics from Google organic did indeed drop the way Webmaster Tools show it.
Reporting & Analytics | | WillW0 -
How can I see what Google sees when it crawls my page?
In other words, how can see the text and what not it sees from start to finish on each page. I know there was a site, but I can't remember it.
Reporting & Analytics | | tiffany11030 -
Where does the organic keyword information come from in Google Analytics?
I know that Google switch to all encrypted search, but I still show some keywords. Are those keywords that slipped through? Or are they all from Yahoo/Bing?
Reporting & Analytics | | EcommerceSite0 -
Google Analytics Not Tracking 100% of Visits?
Hi all, We're having an issue with Analytics where we are getting different figures from what Silver Pop are saying. For example email campaign A sent via Silver Pop, with Google Analytics tracking code show's 50 unique clicks in Silver Pop. Looking at Google Analytics there are only 10 visits from that campaign. So I thought it could be something with the tracking, but there wasn't a significant rise in web visits = either Google Analytics is not recording visits properly or Silver Pop figures are wrong. I'm more inclined to think that it's something to do with Google Analytics. Has anyone come across something similar? Where one system is showing you X amount of visits but the figures on Google Analytics don't add up? A few quick things already covered: Double checked the links have been tracked properly, but this doesn't explain the low increase in web visits generally We've double checked that Google Analytics tracking code is properly installed (and it is / was at the time of send). Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks guys.
Reporting & Analytics | | RKHStaff1 -
Not found and Not followed Errors on Web Master Tools
Just noticed in web master tools that we are showing 150 not found errors on our site, the majority appear to be from old blog posts that have been deleted, is this damaging from an SEO perspective on a scale from 1-10? Also we have over 100000 not followed errors throughout the same site, is this damaging from an SEO perspective on a scale from 1-10? Thanks in Advance Andy
Reporting & Analytics | | First-VehicleLeasing0