Though no source is fool-proof, I usually rely on good old Yahoo! http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=www.yourdomainnamehere.com
Simply visit your google webmaster account As for backlinks other sites have got, use yahoo explorer .
you can check you site backlinks on http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/link-popularity-checker.shtml I think that's useful tools..
I like to use www.alexa.com . Just download the toolbar and it can tell you what ranking any site you visit holds and if you click on it you can see the sites that are linking to yours.
I disagree with you. "link:URL" in google is showing a limited back links only and its not accurate results.
Definitely checking backlinks using yahoo is good but still I would prefer using google (link: www.yourdomain.com or link:yourdomain.com) because GOOGLE is the BOSS
contentboss wrote: You mix up 2 different things: 1 . google search link:url google shows only a very limited amount of backlinks. 2. your gooogle webmaster account >>external links google shows nearly all backlinks of your own site