Google Webmaster Tools Link Reporting: Fact or Fiction

[keyon]

I realize there may be some lag time in what Google reports in webmaster tools, but this is getting ridiculous. My link profile in GWT continues to show IBLs from sites I took down over a month ago. If Google wants to keep some kind of historical record of these links, I guess that's fine --- but the dashboard in GWT implies that this data is current -- according to the most recent crawl of the site ("updated Oct. 10...").

It's a little annoying because I've spent the last month trying to clean up my site's link profile, but GWT makes it look like I've done nothing.

[morestar]

I couldn't answer with any authority but if I was seeing what you're seeing keyon, my first thought would be that Google's not too concerned about removing the links from your profile until it's completely sure you're never going to put them back up again.

Have you removed the sites directly from within GWT?

[deepsand]

To repeat: Never rely on GWMT for complete, accurate, and/or timely link data.

[LD]

To repeat: Never rely on GWMT for complete, accurate, and/or timely link data.

I am so beginning to finally get this. I've been link building for one client since April and only now are most of the links being accounted for in WMT.

[deepsand]

While Google gets Caffeine, the rest of us still get decaf.

[snakeman]

This is one area I DO have some experience with. In May this year I killed over 1000 backlinks for the term "snakeman" for which we own the registered trademark, instead planted to run to a trademark bootleggers website. It took both google and bing some months to disregard these links from their ratings of the offending site and for what it's worth, the site still ranks highly for the keyword, even though it appears most of the backlinks are gone and not many have been added (yes he still bootlegs our trademark in various ways including via newly uploaded backlinks, and we are about to issue legal proceedings against the person).
In another case, removal of a fairly small number of backlinks for another trademark bootlegger, got his site off the front page SERP's within a few hours, so obviously there are a lot of factors that may play into things.
In a related vein, I am in a tit-for-tat, battle with competitors over several keywords and often it appears the google results don't reflect the backlinking profiles of either party. I think that it often takes months for google/bing to settle a given set of links and the like, in the meantime of course new links may be added or lost. This makes it almost impossible for an SEO person to predict the likely movement of SERPS for either a client or opposing sites.
All the best
Snakeman

[deepsand]

This is one area I DO have some experience with. In May this year I killed over 1000 backlinks for the term "snakeman" for which we own the registered trademark, instead planted to run to a trademark bootleggers website. It took both google and bing some months to disregard these links from their ratings of the offending site and for what it's worth, the site still ranks highly for the keyword, even though it appears most of the backlinks are gone and not many have been added (yes he still bootlegs our trademark in various ways including via newly uploaded backlinks, and we are about to issue legal proceedings against the person).
In another case, removal of a fairly small number of backlinks for another trademark bootlegger, got his site off the front page SERP's within a few hours, so obviously there are a lot of factors that may play into things.
In a related vein, I am in a tit-for-tat, battle with competitors over several keywords and often it appears the google results don't reflect the backlinking profiles of either party. I think that it often takes months for google/bing to settle a given set of links and the like, in the meantime of course new links may be added or lost. This makes it almost impossible for an SEO person to predict the likely movement of SERPS for either a client or opposing sites.
All the best
Snakeman

All of which assumes that GWMT displays timely & accurate data, which it does not.

[snakeman]

Thanks Deepsand (see above), you are correct!
(I was working in the absence of GWMT)
All the best
Snakeman

[nickoran]

To repeat: Never rely on GWMT for complete, accurate, and/or timely link data.

looking forward to the "real time" data are we? lol

[deepsand]

looking forward to the "real time" data are we? lol

Most would probably be satisfied with incomplete but accurate data that are consistently available with a reasonable short known fixed delay