More SEOs have been more dependent on Yahoo and MSN in reporting backlinks simply because Google won’t display them. Not that Google does not see them, Google is just not displaying them. But Google has just made a new update to the webmaster tools. Google Webmaster Tools now includes a very comprehensive inbound and outbound links report. It now shows all links that Google sees on you site. Google has announced the new feature on the Google blog yesterday:

• http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/02/discover-your-links.html
• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/who-links-to-your-site.html

As quoted from Vannessa Fox by Danny Sullivan on one of his post on Search Engine Land.

“Webmasters have been wanting more comprehensive link data from us for a long time,” said Vanessa Fox, product manager for Google Webmaster Central. “We created Webmaster Central to communicate better with webmasters and we take their feedback very seriously. We have been looking at ways to provide this data and are ecstatic to make it available.”

I gave it a spin I am impressed being able to see the details of where all links go to and see also what permalinks to my sites are linked to by other people. Login to you webmaster tools account and check it out yourself.

Update: A co-worker of mine gave it a shot too right after I showed him this post. Some how Yahoo still seemed to find more links than the link report within Google Webmaster Tools. Does this mean then that Google has not seen all links yet? Google has been crawling slower than Yahoo? Or Google is still not displaying all inbound links like the link: command?