Google says I have about 20 backlinks... and lists them all under Webmaster Tools Yahoo finds about 120 Does Google just count the 20 that is listed only?
google don't show all the backlinks which it has tracked. It only shows very few backlinks in order to protect from competetion.
Google never shows complete information; write that on your wall. But, they definitely count them all. Bompa
That is a globally true statement. Google Webmaster Tools is even behind on itself. My index stats there are ALWAYS lower than what google itself shows me when I do a site: search.
Google also has a different set of criteria in it's algorythim so it counts things differently. Links that I see from Ask, Yahoo and Bing differ greatly from Google.
You see i wrote there , they don't show all backlinks in order to protect the webmaster from competetion from other webmasters of same niche... I hope you understand that . I don't know where , but i read this thing in google's website . Maybe Webmasters help or KB ..Check it out yourself...
If you are talking about GWT than yes, Google should show ALL backlinks it has treated as relevant and taken into consideration. Of course in link: command it only gives a random sample. I have too noticed big difference in the number of backlinks in Yahoo and GWT which I explain by the fact that Google chooses not to factor in certain backlinks (low quality, duplicate content...etc). It would be interesting to hear what others think about this.
Although I have a njmber of .gov BLs on cached pages, Webnaster tools does not list them. So, I'd say that G is still showing only what they wish you to see. /*tom*/
Really! That is very very interesting - isn't it. Is that link fresh or has it been there for a while?
I would say it is extremely accurate in the long run - but the data is slow/stale. If you built 1000 links, then wait 2 months - you will be able to see 800-950+ of them (if they are average/good links, ie not spam/plig/scuttle sites)
I always thought that there may be a relation between link importance/authority and it's speed of entry in GWT. Eg if you get a link from BBC editorial piece it will get into GWT list sooner than my auntie's cat website's footer. Has anyone observed this at all?
I do think that would be the case, though I have a feeling they roll out of new data in batches only every x weeks so it is never super fresh. Ps. Big up Dejan, see you're still rocking the SEO top ten in Aus
i uses yahoo explorer, it is ten times better to check links. you can check your competitor links as well haha
Yeah I'm usually somewhere in there I think you're right so it might be a balance between authority and their batch releases of backlinks. Truly that's their near bottom priority as it doesn't directly affect the search quality. As Matt Cutts said - Google always prioritises based on what affects most of their users. That's how big traffic sites get busted before small and low traffic sites for breaking the same rule.
If you remember a couple months ago...maybe 6? Google changed the webmaster tools setup. Back then I could track all the links pretty effectively but with the changes the link portfolio picture is pretty incomplete imo. Yahoo site explorer is pretty handy. *Sometimes you don't need to find all the backlinks to find all the backlinks* (sounds like Yogi Berra ha!) ...you can figure out which ones are sticking and surmise what strategies are paying off and which ones aren't from a small sampling size from 3rd party backlink checkers.