The other day I ran WebSite Auditor on my site to check on link count. WA reported that there were approximately 400 links to the site in question.

Over the course of the next couple of days, the site gained another 100 links. Then it gained about 100 links overnight.

This is all without me doing anything.

The next time I checked (the next day, as I recall), it reported that the site had about 400 links.

A week later, it still had about 400 links.

Then WA reported that it gained 1,000 links overnight.

It's now sitting at about 1,400 links (nothing changed overnight this time) - about 1,000 of which report that the pages do not link back because the link is missing.

It's reporting links (that do not link back due to "link missing") from sites like Harvard, the LA Times Sports page, and porn sites. The site in question has nothing to do with sports or porn (and the Harvard page is simply an individual's profile).

I've got two questions that I'm hoping someone can help answer:

- What's with the sudden jump in links (1,000 links overnight without any link-building efforts and no sudden infusion of great content to my website definitely raises some questions)
- If WA reports that links are "missing," then why would they be reported/counted?

Any ideas?

Cheers from sunny Vancouver.

Dawson

Are you sure you are talking about WebSite Auditor? Could you please tell s what URL/keyword/search engine you started the project for - we will take a closer look.

Oops, sorry. I meant SEO Spyglass.

The URL is www.dawsonbarber.com.

I just ran a rebuild (I selected all backlinks) and got roughly the same results (1,411 backlinks). There are some mighty strange sites showing up (FBI's Most Wanted List is one of many examples...yikes!).

I don't know if it's important or not, but when the rebuild finished, the status window displayed a message that said "307 backlinks analyzed."

Just out of curiosity, I just ran two more analyses on my site. The results are as follows:

http://dawsonbarber.com - 228 backlinks
http://www.dawsonbarber.com - 328 backlinks

Cheers

Dawson

Well, SEO SpyGlass uses the



operator to gather backlinks and returns exactly the results that the search engines return for that query. So running a rebuild makes sense if you select more additional search engines or run it a week or so after you gathered the project (search engines shift their backlink results with time) - and it helps you accumulate existing backlinks to a site with time.

If the results shift that means what the search engines themselves give out shifts - or they shift if you select different search engines each time.

I understand what you're saying about the data collection methodology.

Any rebuild I did included the exact same search engines (and same number).

In addition to the porn sites that Spyglass reports as linking back to my site (for which, thankfully, the links are missing - which begs the question: how can it report as a backlink if there is no link?) here is a sample of the wide range of totally unrelated (in some cases outrageously so) pages that Spyglass says link back to my site:

- http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/161/12/2185 - a psychiatry site
- http://www.museum.tv/PDF/Hosea.pdf - a .pdf file published and copyrighted in 2005 (4 years before my site existed)
- http://www.jordanembassyus.org/060899002.htm - appears to be a news release from the Jordan embassy in 1999
- http://abel.math.harvard.edu/~gross/ - the profile page of a Harvard math professor
- http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terabdullah.htm - the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List (single Most Wanted Bulletin
_ http://www.drabdullah.af/index.php?page ... h+Abdullah - the official Website of Dr Abdullah Abdullah
- http://unger.myplainview.com/cemetery/cemetery2.php - cemetary records
- http://www.drabdullah.af/index.php?page=en_Biography - another page from Dr Abdullah's Website
- http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009 ... 62767.html - Al Jezeera website with an interview with - who else - Abdullah Abdullah
- http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/bio?alphakey=0 - Britannica Kids Encyclopedia
- http://bible.org/seriespage/hosea - the Bible.org website
- there are many many more - too numerous to waste anymore time with

Spyglass reports that none of the above-noted links (and hundreds of other similar links) link back.

Again, my question is:

Why on earth are they showing up (no link and there's no way there ever were any...the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist page linking to a Website on Internet Marketing...to say nothing of the preposterousness of the idea that any of the others would)?

It seems that there must be a glitch in your system.

Please advise.

Thanks

Dawson

PS I'm not looking for reasons to gripe about the renewal fees for the Live Plan (just renewed mine for all four modules for a year today). I'm just looking for some reasons why this is happening.

Hello,

this sounds extremely weird. Are you sure you did not start the project via File -> New project: expert options -> enter backlinks manually or import Google webmaster links?

Also it would help us if you sent us your project via Help -> Send project to support, so we take a closer look.

In any case, we tried to reproduce the problem and could not - no search engines give those backlinks for your site. Most probably creating a new project for your site will fix the issue. Rebuilding he project won't really work because these backlinks found previously will remain in the project but will get a "removed" status.

Hi there

Thanks for your reply.



No, I did not start the project in the manner outlined above.



Will do.



I will try this and let you know what the results are.

Cheers,

Dawson