Google has killed off yet another search function, this time the link: option. What this was supposed to do (and I'm never sure that it worked very well anyway) was to tell you which sites linked to the site in question. It was quite useful because it gave you an indication as to what type of page you might be looking at. For example, if you checked to see who linked to my site you'd have seen that it was mainly universities and search engine optimisation sites. Links to a racist Martin Luther King site told you that it was linked to by libraries and academic institutions which were taking the line of 'don't trust this site' and by racist white power sites.
What happens if you try link: and an address is that Google just does a straightforward search and is looking for the word 'link' and derivatives of it. It was a useful little function and one that people on my courses always liked. However, value and usefulness doesn't matter much as far as Google is concerned.
What a shame. This was a useful feature. Do you know if any other search engine has it or a site with a similar feature?
Posted by: Jaye | January 17, 2017 at 07:44 PM