Last week Google announced a change to the way they classify internal and external links in Webmaster Tools. The update shouldn’t change the number of links, but should report your links in a more accurate way in regards to where they are coming from.
In the past, links from subdomains (ie: example.seo.com) were classified as external links. Even a link from the non www version of your site was classified as external. With the changes, links from these types of domains will now be considered internal links, as long as you also own the root domain.
With this change you may notice your total number of external links go down, but this is only because some of your links that were previously classified as external are now being classified as internal. Your total number of links should remain the same.
image by TechWyse
Do a brilliant work on your on page content, and your rankings will skyrocket.
Thus is the result of Google Panda
Steven
I’m surprised Google didn’t do this earlier. Perhaps they were perfecting the algorithm as to not negatively impact legitimate sites. This measure is likely intended to target the spammy sites that link to themselves many thousands of times.
Thanks for this update on Google’s reclassification of backlinks Robyn – very helpful.
Thanks for sharing this update from google .great to listen from you
Backlinks will be increasing high traffic to our blogs without any doubt. Thank you so much for sharing your post on here
How will it affect sites that have tons of links that will now be classified as “Internal” rather than “external” ?
Create quality content and get listed on top.
I wonder how long they are going to use the +1′s in their ranking factor, if they decide to at all.
Quality content is still king … qyuality backlinks won't hurt either.