How often does the WMT incoming links gets updated?

[BeytzNet]

Hi,

We made some drastic changes removing links (mainly resulted from one domain) and wondered when we should expect a change in the incoming links report of Google's WMT...?

Thanks

[Chris.Menke]

Beytznet,

I think it is generally accept by those who have tried to determine an update interval for almost anything GWT-related is that one cannot be determined.  It seems to happen when it happens and I think we're supposed to be happy with that.

[anthonytjm]

Im not sure the inbound links in GWT is ever accurate. Ive worked with several sites that had links removed over a year ago and they still show up in GWT. Even when linked site no longer existed. I guess such is the penalty for sites that once violated Googles TOS.

I think this would also delay the fixing of an algorythmic penalty if GWT hasnt recognized the newly revised or more accurate inbound links.

[evolvingSEO]

Hey There

Unfortunately I have seen the same issues as Chris and Anthony describe - and that is it's never clear how updated the data is in WMT.

In theory I believe Google needs to crawl the page(s) the backlinks were on, see they are no longer there, and propagate that to your WMT account. I do know that for the disavow tool, Google has said it can take them up to 6 months to process all the sites in your file. So who know, perhaps it's an equally long time range for removing links and seeing them disappear from the link report.

Anyhow - I do have a small tip. For any link cleanup we have done, we keep a very detailed spreadsheet of all the links and a status on action and result. So when you pull new link reports from any tool (WMT, Moz, Majestic etc) you can compare that to your spreadsheet and eliminate duplicates or links you have already dealt with.

Also, one fast way to check several hundred links at once is to put the links in a .txt file, and upload to Screaming Frog in 'list' more - and crawl all of them with a filter looking for your domain name. This will tell you a) what linking pages don't even exist anymore (404) and b) if you still have a link on them.

If you want something even more robust at managing links, perhaps look into BuzzStream - http://www.buzzstream.com/ - I haven't used it myself (yet, but may do so soon) and I hear it's good to keep track of links.

-Dan

Hope that helps!