I know that if you do <a href="...sdfsdf.com">link</a> , google will count it. But what if you go on a blog and type www.link.com (with no html, just text). Will google scan that and make that a link? Because when i type link: johnchow.com , I saw that as a link before
google only updates their backlinks once in a while so its never definitive but if you have a link to your site on another, it IS a backlink lol, i mean, it is a physical backlink, you have it there pointing to your site, you don't need google to tell you what it is
It will only count as a backlink if it appears with <a href="..."> and followed attribute if viewed under html source.
Gogle will only count if its a hyper(Without no follow tag) link and not just text. For example, this does not count as a back link a1newspapers.com