number of back links displayed using link operator are not relatively now because Google not support Link Operator.
Google disabled the link operator several years ago, to stop reverse engineering of other people's site's serps position. Poster Canonical gave this very informative reply in another thread about Matt Cutt's response to be asked about how Google shows backlinks in Webmaster tools, as well http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1931771#post14918592