I have recently launched a new site. A few days ago I did a link check and found 3 links listed. Today I find none, and no related sites either. Am I paranoid? Did I do something wrong? Was I banned for some silly reason?

I studied the logs (which is easy because they are near empty still). I did find one very amazing entry for AdminShop.com. Interesting, because I checked it out and found the following text:

"Reffy is a Windows-based mass referrer spammer, which means that it will make a connection to a buttload of sites of your choosing with any referrer URL and User-Agent that you specify. This accomplishes several things. Firstly, it generates webmaster traffic from webmasters checking their referral statistics."

Sure enough, they are doing what they claim they will do for others. Spam. Sure enough, it worked in that I looked. Could these turkeys cause problems for people simply by blasting away?

Back to my paranoia: any thoughts as to why the links went away. The site is http:Picture of Jesus on Shroud of Turin (http://www.shroud-of-turin-facts.com) (Please don't discuss the Shroud here, it is not the place.) I'm just wondering if Google found me doing something inappropriate that I did not intend.

Dan

>>Am i paranoid

Yes. It doesnt mean they're not all out to get you though ;-)

>>Was I banned for some silly reason?

More paranoia. This is what google wants mate, they create an atmosphre of paranoia with newbie webmasters, most noticeably from their laughable pages on seo and their ambiguous and largely silly guidelines. Fact is, they cant control the machine, so they resort to cluetrain tactics to scare the crap out of anyone considering optimizing their site. Chill, all is well.

>>Could these turkeys cause problems for people simply by blasting away?

No.

>>any thoughts as to why the links went away

Nope, but i can tell you that this is *very* normal, your backlinks are fine in msn and Y! so dont worry about it, G will sort itself out in time, somtimes it takes a while but it'll get there.

No one can ever say for certain, but i can say for 99% certain that you have nothing to fear.

Nick

It will just take me some time to get the hang of it. I am far more interesting in optimizing for users than for search engines.

I just popped a beer and toasted you (actually your helpful reply). Thanks

Dan