Huge Drop in External Links

[Joe2013]

Hello, My total external links dropped from 900 to zero on a site that I've had running for about 10 years.  What could possibly cause this? Thanks, Joe

[GastonRiera]

Hi Joe,

It's know that from update to update the Backlink count may vary that much. It doesnt mean that all your external links have desapeared.. It's just a minor bug at mozscape.

Don't worry.

Best Luck.
GR.

[DonnaDuncan]

Hi Joe,

Not sure how you detected this problem. Was it on Moz Open Site Explorer? If that's the case, then Gaston has provided an answer. Especially if those 900 links were coming from very few sources, it's credible that Moz may not have picked them up in the last build of its backlink index.

If you detected it using another tool, or even with Moz, I'd use a few other sources to confirm whether you have a problem or not. Take a look at Search Console, MajesticSEO, and/or aHrefs. They will show you how many links you have. The last two will show you patterns of acquisition and loss. Most sites gain and lose links over time. You'd want to look for an abrupt change in pattern.

If that doesn't answer your question, let us know and we can pursue other possibilities.

[Joe2013]

Wow!  That's great news Gaston!

My Domain Authority went from 14 down to 1.  Can you tell me if that is bug related as well?

[GastonRiera]

Of course its related to the same bug.

just to clarify, you didn't change or redirect the main domain? Https, www to non-www, re-brand or checked a different URL?

[Joe2013]

Hi Donna,

I see it in MOZ / Competitive Link Metrics.

My link data is fairly consistent over the years and then a huge drop off in the past 2 weeks from 900 to zero!

Thanks,
Joe

[Joe2013]

No, none of those Gaston.  Thanks for the information!

[KevnJr]

Joe, Gaston & Donna,

I track 11 competitors w/ a spreadsheet after every DA release, 8 lost a major amount of links, one lost 1,712,850 while we dropped 77,480. Last year I disavowed monthly for 6 months, now just quarterly, so I know it was not on my end. I also noticed a much higher rise in DA w/ this release than any other this year, we went up 3 (which is great) while a major competitor improved 7.

Gaston, if this is a minor bug as you indicated, do you foresee another DA release sooner than scheduled, or possibly an announcement from Moz?

KJr

8-8-16.png

[GastonRiera]

Kevin,

You should know that measuring the PA/DA is not guarantee for better positions. You shold alway check other factors besides PA/DA and links.
PA/DA movements may be due to a lot of reasons. Here the official explanation and a question answered by Rand Fishkin.
Mozscape Link index update - Moz Domain authority get down significantly. Internal MOZ Issue? Google Algoritm Update?

Regarding the updates, you can check them out here: Mozscape API Update

Best of luck.
GR.

[KevnJr]

GR,

Absolutely, there are no guarantees. That's why i measure head to head with our direct competitors.

Bottom Line: somebody's going to get the opportunity, and they probably rank in the top 10, I believe monitoring and adjusting will give us the best chance at that opportunity.

TY,
KJr

[MattRoney]

Hi Joe!

To reiterate what the other folks on this thread are saying, it's very, very likely that the drop to 1 is because we didn't end up indexing your site or the sites linking to it in the last index update (which isn't the same as a bug, for what it's worth, though if your data isn't there I realize the distinction is academic). This index was rather smaller than the previous one, with 161 billion URLs after the previous update's 193 billion. You can get all the details here.

I'm extra-inclined to believe this is the case because 1) the site's previous DA was 14, which is low enough to imply that linking domains are also of generally low DA and less likely to be crawled, and 2) DA/PA of 1 almost always means we simply don't have information on the URL.

We're always working to grow the index, and I'd say there's a very good chance the site will be back in the next one. Rand has written about the affects of index changes on link metrics here.

[MattRoney]

Exactly.