Google makes changes to how links are counted in natural search rankings

[mandy]

A change in the way Google Inc. recognizes the number of inbound links to a web site has caused many sites to drop in their Google natural search rankings, and re-building those rankings can take months, says search marketing expert Cindy Brown, CEO of search marketing firm Blue Moon Works.

“In the past, Google counted every link from other sites and credited them toward the receiving site’s natural search rankings, but it has honed that number down,” Brown says. Google recently changed its strategy from counting every link after it realized diminishing returns in the relevancy of results—an outgrowth of the huge number of links that many sites were acquiring through link brokers and other means, she adds...

Many web sites that had acquired links in mass numbers have realized a significant drop in their Google natural search ranking, while sites that have built their number of links more gradually from a large number of related sites have fared better...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=21556