Google Webmaster Tools “Links To Your Site” Reporting Bug

Last week, we began seeing complaints of the Google Webmaster Tools “Links To Your Site” report showing 80% or less of the number of links that should be displayed. Yesterday, I noticed the issue myself, and today, Google confirmed this is a reporting bug.

In short, tons of webmasters who analyze their links using Google Webmaster Tools have noticed a huge drop in the number of reported links to their sites. For example, my site, Search Engine Roundtable, had 3.8 million links reported last week, then yesterday dropped to 2.1 million links and now it is reporting 1.3 million links.

Scary, but for those who are familiar with Google Webmaster Tools — they know there are frequent reporting glitches. In fact, a similar issue sprung up back in February.

Here is Google’s statement from today:

Some Webmaster Tools users have reported missing data in the “Links to your site” section. We are aware of this issue and are looking into it; you do not need to take any action. We hope to have the normal data shown again in the near future. The data shown there is informational and does not affect your site’s crawling, indexing or ranking.

Do not worry; hopefully, the numbers will go back to normal shortly.