What can be done to regain backlinks dropped (20%) in May 4th Core update?

[PascalvandenBerk]

We have seen two large drops in backlinks (10% drop twice) after the May 4th Google Core update. What can be done to "get them back"? And what is the best way to identify them. We are talking tens of thousands.

Any help or insights are greatly appreciated!

[BlueprintMarketing]

"have seen two large drops in backlinks (10% drop twice) after the May 4th Google Core update"

It is possible to lose the physical backlink because of an update you can definitely lose backlink equity but the physical backlinks would not be touched by an accurate meaning Google might find some links that consider worth nothing and demote them but thay would still physically point to your website.

you are going to want to run a crawl your website making sure you have no broken links 404's etc.

you can use Moz,  screaming frog, deep crawl,  oncrawl, Ahrefs, etc.

• https://moz.com/blog/googles-may-2020-core-update-winners
• https://www.mariehaynes.com/may-2020-core-google-update/

The best way to Identify the missing backlinks is to use a tool like Moz Link Explorer

however, I think it's very unlikely that physically lost backlinks to your website because of May 4th Google Core update

• https://analytics.moz.com/pro/link-explorer/home
• https://majestic.com/
• https://ahrefs.com/
• http://www.linkresearchtools.com/

"get them back"

You need to you'll need to lineup the site backlinks with the URLs they were pointed to and remain the old URL or create a 301 redirect to an extremely similar page when I say extremely similar I mean almost identical page.

What I also consider doing means it's an outreach if you lost a lot of links to your site miniatures listed above will be to show you exactly what was lost in it sounds like it's a technical error.

if it is something more than not use pitchbox.com they are by far the best method reaching out to people who have moved or removed your links.

If you want to share the domain be happy to take a look for you.

I'm guessing this is just a coincidence regarding the update unless you have other information?

respectfully,

Tom

[Chris.Menke]

Pascal,

Going by the numbers of links you're talking about (tens of thousands being only 5-10% of total links) in relation to them  being lost in the core update, makes me wonder about their quality. It makes me wonder if your rankings might have dropped, as well--I mean really, except for the people who closely watch the traffic brought in by hard-earned back links, most people would rather not have to worry about the dang things at all. Am I right?

Anyway, the seemingly most obvious explanation is that the pages and/or domains those tens of thousands of links reside on were devalued due to google's algorithm update and Moz's crawler/algorithm didn't incorporate them into subsequent updates as a result. Are you seeing the same sort of thing on other platforms?

It may turn out that the owners of the sites hosting those tens of thousands of links may be able to turn things around on their site(s) and all those thousands of links return to the realm of visibility.  But really, I don't know if I'd be clamoring to get them back, if I were you.

If your rankings haven't dropped, consider yourself lucky and take it as a lesson to develop better back links. If rankings have dropped, well, take that as a lesson to get better back links  too. : )  In either case, if I were you, I'd take a very, very close look at them with an eye toward disavowing them--and maybe any more thousands you have that you might think could be in jeopardy in a  future core-style update.