There are times when data that was visible in Google Search Console suddenly disappears.

It can be particularly alarming when the "Top linking sites" information under the External links section is no longer visible.

The most common reason is Google's data reprocessing. The link data in Google Search Console is not real-time data. It is data that Google shows after crawling, reorganizing, and calculating internally. During this process, the link report may temporarily appear empty or some data may seem to have disappeared. This phenomenon often occurs when Google updates its link index. Usually, it reappears after a few days.

The second reason is a property setting issue. There are two main types of site properties in Google Search Console: Domain property and URL prefix property. For example, the data range differs when registering the entire domain example.com versus a specific URL like https://www.example.com
 If you change the property or check a different property, the Top linking sites may not be visible. Many site administrators actually experience confusion in this area.

The third reason is link data filtering. Google automatically filters out spam links or links with low trust. During algorithm updates or internal cleanup processes, some links may be excluded from the report. In such cases, the actual links have not completely disappeared; rather, Google may have decided not to display them in the report.

The fourth reason is a decrease in crawling. If there have been few updates to the site recently or if search traffic has decreased, Google's crawling frequency may also drop. When crawling decreases, the discovery of new links slows down, and updates to existing link data also become slower. In this case, the Top linking sites data may temporarily decrease or appear empty.

The fifth reason is issues with the site itself. Technical problems such as robots.txt settings, noindex tags, or server errors can prevent Google from properly crawling the site. In such cases, the link data will not be updated correctly. However, these issues often appear in the Coverage report or Page indexing report as well.

Lastly, there is also the possibility of a simple Google bug. Since Search Console is not a perfect system, temporary data errors can occur. In fact, cases of "Top linking sites suddenly disappearing and then reappearing" are frequently reported in the SEO community.

In summary, the reasons for the sudden disappearance of Top linking sites information include Google's link data reprocessing, property setting changes, link filtering, decreased crawling, UI changes, or temporary data errors.

Therefore, when this situation occurs, it is better to check a few things first rather than immediately assuming there is a site issue.

Check if the property is correct, try accessing it from a different browser, and waiting a few days is the most realistic approach.

In most cases, the data reappears after some time. Since the link report in Google Search Console is reference data, slight fluctuations or temporary gaps are relatively common occurrences.