Funny how trends seem to follow themselves in the search world as Google and Yahoo backlink tracking services provided by Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer both experienced problems over the last couple of days and now both seem to be working again.
Yahoo Site Explorer and its backlink search command “link:http://www.yoursite.com” did not completely function Wednesday and Thursday as users were experiencing time-outs and error messages when trying to check their backlinks. Interestingly enough, checking backlinks via third party products in Yahoo seemed to work for myself, perhaps a difference between API accounts and ‘live’ search commands.
Adding to the backlink confusion Barry reported that Google Webmaster Tools’ Link Report Tool was not fully functioning; “To be specific, the link reports were not downloading to your desktop, when that feature was requested.”
Why would Yahoo and Google be experiencing these problems at the same time? One guestimate could be that Live Search / MSN Search is currently testing its own webmaster service with link checking, site maps and other tools which help website owners communicate better with the search engine, and Yahoo & Google are both working on upgrading their services before Microsoft unveils their new service (or an expanded beta testing) next week at its Searchification event.
