For years, the link operator in Google only provided a sample of your backlinks.
Today, Google announced a new addition to Webmaster Tools where you can find all of your backlinks. If you don’t have a webmaster tools account you can check the link above to see details.
Why hide it away in a password protected segment like this? Simple, It prevents some gaming by webmasters. When the link operator was more accurate, you could check your competitor’s backlinks and interpret some information from that. By only giving you detailed analysis on your own links, it lets you keep on top of things, but still keeps you in the relative dark with regards to competitors. Smart move 
This is an important development. Take note.
Google Sitemaps, web development, web stats, webmaster
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Caribbean Guy // Feb 6, 2007 at 2:54 pm
This link data is still just a subset of the complete universe of links Google knows about.
As explained on the Google’s webmaster central blog:
“Google knows about more links than the total we show, but the overall fraction of links we show is much, much larger than the link: command currently offers.”
Also, Google isn’t giving any indication which links are considered important (given any weight) within Google’s ranking algorithms.
2 Marc // Feb 6, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Excellent points. It is certainly true that they are still holding some of it back, but it’s still a huge help to get a clearer picture