Will Google’s Classic Link Operator Signs Of Being Turned Off For Good?

One of the important aspects of any SEO service is link discovery and management, and typically, SEOs have used a special search operator from Google to find these links.  This operator used the format of [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][link:www.domain.com].

Although this operator was historically useful, it has become less and less useful for SEOs and webmasters over time.  On top of that, Google has said to webmasters on a number of occasions that they should be using the Google Search Console link report for better link discovery because the link operator only shows a “sample” of a site’s links.

It was noticed last week by Bill Hartzer that the link operator stopped functioning for a number of large sites, including [link:www.google.com]. But, it did/does work for other large sites, like [link:www.yahoo.com].

Gary Illyes, a Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, told everybody on Twitter that the link operator wasn’t removed:

@webrankinfo the short answer is “no”. For the long answer please email [email protected] @Missiz_Z @JohnMu @bhartzer

— Gary Illyes (@methode) February 12, 2016

Check out the following screen shot that shows it not working for a link command on google.com:

Here is what it looks like when a link command works (in this case, for yahoo.com):

At this point, it seems that Google has no more to say on the matter, above what Gary Illyes already said on Twitter.

Source – Barry Schwartz[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]