Google Webmaster Tool Links

I have been reviewing the list of links for my websites in Google Webmaster Tools and found lots of new links but also lots of old ones have disappeared.
I checked the ones that have disappeared and found most are still on the sites and the pages they are on are still indexed in Google.

My questions from this analysis are:

1) Why aren't all the links showing if they are indexed?

2) What is the best tool to see all the indexed links?

3) Does Google use the links listed in Webmaster Tools as the basis of the sites serps or does it count all links that are indexed?

Appreciate your feedback on this!

 

Google limits showing of backlinks of a site even in GWT (which shows more), Yahoo Siteexplorer do much better showing about 1000 of a site's backlink.

 

yahoo shows mostly all links which associate with your url

 

You can use the search term for your all indexed links,
link:www.yourdomain.com
I am quite sure that the pr and serp depends on its webmaster tool indexed link.

 

Hi Michael,

For 1) In my experience links go up and down in GWT. They usually go down and down then jump back up shortly before (like a week or so) a Google toolbar export of PageRank.

2) You can go to Yahoo and type link:www.domain.com to see most of your backlinks.

3) I guess outside Google no-one really knows but since the link count goes up and down as per 1) whereas my SERPS stay pretty rock solid for my keywords, I'm guessing the Google counts more links than it actually shows

Brian

 

You will see valid back links back in few weeks or months. This is normal behavior for me also. This is a part of google indexing.

 

I saw my GWT link count drop from 3,650 to around 911.

no worries: the "Caffeine" update is showing HUGE increases in my SERP rankings.

 

Thanks for the responses! I lost about 30% of my links in the June update and are now slowly building them back up.
It would be good if GWT did show all the links!

 

Google webmaster tools would display more backlinks to your site after you could authenticate your site.
And for still showing some outdated links, it is a concept called linking decay.

 

Google webmaster tools show links that change frequently. For example, google can re-index deleted links. So take yahoo siteexploer or backlinkwatch to find your backlinks.

 

Use https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com that helps you to find the back links.

 

Google webmaster tools would display more backlinks to your site after you could authenticate your site.
also u can use yahoo siteexploer or backlinkwatch to find your backlinks.

 

Oh this is amazing.. Ive been trying to read about this lately..