The link: search is gone once again

Posted by JohnCarcutt
December 24, 2007

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For the past few months determining how many sites were lining back to your site has been a bit of a challenge. None of the major search engines had any type of reliable information being returned via the “link:” search command. Recently, Microsoft (believe it or not) came to the rescue. The addition of a “+” at the beginning of the command appeared to make it work once again. Well, Microsoft givith and takith away. Recent attempts to use the new form of the link search command have fallen on null results. The link: search appears to be dead across the board again.

Here’s a quick recap of how the major search engines are distorting the results of the link: search …

Google – Only shows between 10 and 20 percent of the inbound links it knows about using this command. In the Webmaster tools you will find a comprehensive list of ALL the links it knows about even the ones it does not use and know way to tell the good from the bad.

Yahoo – Until recently this was the goto engine for the link: search, however it has been recently shown that different results are displayed for the link: search based on whether you are the verified owner of the site or not.

MSN/Live – Microsoft snubbed the search community a few months ago when it disabled the link: search altogether. Then just a couple of weeks ago it seemed to be back and MSN earned the praise of the search community for its timely reintroduction. Opps .. what ever made us think we could put faith in a Microsoft search product. Its gone again.

If you are looking to determine how many inbound links you have to a site or page, be careful and remember that any data you use is suspect at the moment.