What causes total external links to fluctuate so much?

[project.rockhopper]

On my dashboard, external links refers to links on other websites pointing to my own website, correct?

If so, I'm seeing some interesting data on my report this week. Apparently I have 129 external links. This is down by 380. What the heck happened here? I've been doing nothing differently, just chugging along, producing good content. What on earth would cause 380 links to my website just up and disappear?

I'm also tracking a competitor. This competitor currently has 3,262 external links. But this is up by 1,900 from the previous update. What the heck happened here? I know it's probably impossible to tell for sure, but what could have caused such a meteoric growth in my competitor? I can see if they already had 50,000 and they increased by 1.9k, but 1.9k is a significant fraction of their current external links.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

According to Moz Health, there have been some update issues happening lately; that could be one of the reasons why your link numbers have changed.

Just keep an eye on this. Rand also has an update in the Q+A section as well.

Hope this helps - good luck!

[MeasureEverything]

Hello,

I experienced the same exact thing this week. Results seem off, so I'm with Patrick on this one. I'm hopeful it's related to some of the issues that Moz is having.

-Alex

[MattRoney]

It's pretty likely it's the index. This one was quite a bit smaller than the last, so a lot of URLs are missing. That affects link metrics like PA/DA, as well. Patrick's link to Moz Health and Rand's Q&A post will give you more information.

Do your due diligence, of course—it's possible that the issue _isn't _the update. But if nothing else has changed for you, that's the most likely explanation.