In the last few days Windows Live / MSN have switched off functionality of their advanced search commands such as “link:” and “inurl:”. From a search engine optimisation point of view this isn’t so bad, just a little annoying for those of us who like to get a measure of how their site’s strength is seen in different search engines.
MSN have done this as they feel the tools have recently been greatly abused by automated scripts used for data mining. They say they are striving to re-introduce the tool as soon as possible, albeit in a more secure manner.
The number of backlinks a site has gives a reliable indication of how strong a website is, and is the measure most SERPs are still fundamentally based upon. A backlink can be seen as a sort of “vote” of confidence from one website to another. Obviously not all backlinks are seen as votes of confidence; there are many websites made up entirely of links, providing little quality content to any visitors, including search engine spiders, who will flag the site appropriately.
This recent step by MSN isn’t anything to worry about, they are still keeping track of people’s backlinks just not making them publicly viewable.
Rik Weber
SEO Consultant
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