Google Backlinks

Hi All,

Can we completely depend on the back links obtained from Google tool bar. ie, link:website address.

Please advise

Thanks

Indu Nair

A short and precise answer.....NO.

Google just presents a random sample of links. Opt for Yahoo or a tool such as backlinkwatch or Google webmasters tools.

I've same answer: NO AV.COM is much better for the explore of your back links.

Thanks a lot.
I also relied on google to search baclinks before.

I dont know why Google dont just fix this on the Toolbar. It is widely understood that the backlinks button doesnt actually provide a list of backlinks, and it has been like this for years.

Woudlnt it be easier for Google just to link that button for a search to "link: sitename" which does the same job but works.

If we can't rely on Google for backlinks, why you need to use Google webmasters tools? How effective is this?

Maybe, I should research on this matter, I need to generate more backlinks to increase the PR of my blog.

Same answer from my site also.. NO

We can use this > yahoo backlink and backlinkwatch.

Google displays only a fraction of backlinks using link: operator simply because of keeping the Google algo more difficult to understand. Google Webmaster Area displays much more backlinks but again not all of them. I think Yahoo displays all of them and they are even sorted by value they pass (not sure about this but I have read this somewhere and you can go to Yahoo and see it for yourself).

Nope. Because google knows people will use it to manipulate search engines results. And they HATE IT!

Asking for links from related sites isnt manipulation. No-one is under any obligation to provide a link. How is it different any legitimate form of marketing.

If you are the webmaster for the site, I highly recommend Google webmaster tools. It will give an precise link count in Google.

Even Yahoo, dosen't show them all, unless you have fewer than 1000 links. Google gives a sample to prevent competitors using the information to try to manipulate the SERPs. Webmaster tools is the only real way to discover all the backlinks stored by Google to your site, as has been stated many times below.
Use Yahoo to look at your competitors back links. It should give you enough information to help your link building strategy.

There are lots of other ways to get links and traffic.. Google just show the related results what we enterd into the toolbar.

As we know that most of the sites has been closed link exchange procedure... So i think to concentrate on site traffic isa good idea.. If your site has a good traffic then more n more visitors come to your site and put down a comment or quires to your site...that would cause to increase your site visibility in Google or other search engines...

I didn't know AltaVista was still around. It is like bumping into an old friend