The Moz Blog whiteboard video about link echoes and link ghosts is 100% different and completely opposite to any test results I have ever seen. When I say "not correct" I mean different to any test results I have ever seen.
I like Rand and he is super intelligent however I think he is totally wrong about this.
I even asked Rand Fishkin to be a star in my video with one of the creators of the Internet, Dr. Kleinrock. Please watch the video.
I have worked on about 30+ cases this year where a website was #1 and good backlinks were removed and I have done
extensive testing on this topic. In fact I have created a database of great backlinks that Google likes and I have made a site #1, then taken the links away and pointed them to a different site and the first site drops like a rock and the new site with the good backlinks went to #1. This only took 6 weeks to happen.
Of course I only do this for testing purposes and we follow all Google guidelines.
100% of the time when great backlinks are removed within 2-8
weeks the rankings drop like a rock.
E.g. #1 goes to #35 because they lost the good backlinks.
All I can say is I have not seen one single case of Link ghosts ever, and I have done hundreds of tests on this topic. It is very odd to me because I am certain Rand Fishkin is one of the top 10 best SEO experts in the world. So it seems really weird to me that my test results are completely opposite to Rand's test results. The only explanation I can think of (it is a long shot) is somehow Rand's tests leaked and Google found out about them.
It is a known fact and Google has confirmed they like to play ranking games and confuse SEO's if they can. The more a SEO expert criticizes Google the more unfair mystery penalizes you may receive.
Back to moz link ghosts and link echoes, below please find a link to the moz whiteboard friday.
One of the more interesting phenomena illustrated by Rand's IMEC Lab project is that of "link echoes," sometimes referred to as "link ghosts." The idea is that if we move a page up in rankings by pointing links to it, and then remove those links, the bump in rankings often remains.
In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains what's going on.
