On Thursday, the Google Search Console links report malfunctioned. For many users it showed no links at all, and for others it displayed a drop of nearly 90% compared to the link counts Google had reported just a week earlier. Google acknowledged the problem and chose to revert to older link data while it works on a proper fix. What Google said. John Mueller from Google first commented: “Thanks for the heads-up, Barry. We’ll take a look to see if there’s anything unexpected happening (given the long weekends it might take a bit of time).” Then on Saturday, the links seemed to come back, but that turned out to be only a temporary patch. John Mueller later explained: “They’re working on resolving the actual issue and in the meantime switched back to the data from the week before.” Old data. So at the moment, if you check your links report in Google Search Console, you’re likely seeing data from a previous week. Keep this in mind if you rely on these numbers for client or stakeholder reporting. What the bug looked like. As mentioned, many users saw zero links in the report, while others experienced massive drops of more than 85% of their reported links. Here is a screenshot of the report showing zero links: OK, this takes the cake. Hahaha. Yeah, something is very off with the links reporting in GSC. pic.twitter.com/KIYmFPm1fX— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 21, 2026 Why we care. If you’re using this links report for client updates or stakeholder presentations, it’s crucial to understand…