This month has seen the number of incoming links displayed in Google Webmaster Tools greatly reduce, which has led to a lot of speculation and overall panic by many webmasters. After looking at dozens and dozens of my own domains and reading the public statements from Google reps, it is clear that many links were removed from the tool, but they were removed from just that: the tool. I am not seeing any significant drops in ranking or traffic based on this change. It looks like they are just allowing for the reports to be easier read by the “average” person … whatever that means.

In short, when you see something like link counts drop by a lot on your site, before you panic, look at your stats. Has traffic changed? Has revenue dropped? If it hasn’t, there is no need to panic. Remember your goal here – making a profit. That is always your key indicator.