How does link: work?

Does anybody have an idea why I get different results when I request the number of links to my web site from Google?

Here are the results:
link: travelweaver.net gives 395 results although only 115 show up
link: www.travelweaver.net gives 37 results but only 26 show up
link:www.travelweaver.net (notice that there is no space) gives 5 and only 2 show up

Toddy

 

The first two are just searches returning pages that include the word "link:" and "travelweaver.net" in it. The 3rd is actually the link: operator which is intentionally broken by Google.

Try this official response from Google on the subject.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/02/discover-your-links.html

 

Yes, but the first one returns actually all of the sites that link to my site and this matches the number shown in Google Webmaster Tools for external links.

Toddy

 

That's just because the sites that link to you must have the word LINK and your sitename in it. Try searching for:

the: travelweaver.net

And you'll probably get the same or better results. Link: with a space is not the operator it's just the word link: no matter how many coincidences you see surrounding it's usage.

 

If you want to see the number of your real link type link:www.domain.com

 

ok u can type in link:domain.com also.. because sometimes webmasters prefer not have WWW

 

Don't use google to check your links. Use yahoo.

 

Depends on the format of the backlink embeded on one's site.

395 results although only 115 show up - have you tried to click the omitted results?