Publishers should not be surprised if they see their number of external links go down
On Wednesday, August 31, 2011, Google announced changes in the way link data is categorized in Webmaster Tools.
According to a post on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, the “update won’t change your total number of links, but will hopefully present your backlinks in a way that more closely aligns with your idea of which links are actually from your site vs. from other sites.”
The article goes on to say that both www and non-www versions of a domain will be categorized as internal links. In the past, this wasn’t the case; if a link didn’t contain www and didn’t start with the same URL, it was classified as an external link.
The post clarifies Google’s stance further by stating:
“Most people think of example.com and www.example.com as the same site these days, so we’re changing it such that now, if you add either example.com or www.example.com as a site, links from both the www and non-www versions of the domain will be categorized as internal links.”
Due to this change, don’t be too surprised to see your number of external links go down, although your total amount of links should stay the same.
Since this change will likely drive up the number of internal links for those affected, let’s take a look at some info on internal linking.
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Amount of internal links on a page
Once upon a time, Google suggested using around 100 links on a page. Now, in the Google guidelines, it mentions keeping links to a reasonable amount.
Chances are, even with the likelihood of more internal links on your website, you will not be penalized, even if you go over 100 links. The key is to make sure your links point to valid locations and your content is authoritative.
From an algorithm standpoint, it’s not clear yet as to how Google will handle links from subdomains of websites. If and when more information is available, we will be sure to let you know.
