How do I search for all web sites linking to a particular site the way
that you can do it on altavista by tying in link:dfdfsdfs.com??  Alta
vista is unstable at times (you can't actually see all of the results
most times- it might list 900 links but only let you display 65 of
them).  Other times they are all displayed.

Greetings Msuzdak:

In the Google search engine, you would type

link to: google.com

(Note the spacing of the query)

To see the example, visit
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=link+to%3A+google.com

Using that method, I brought up 425,000 results and you can view them
all if you have the time.  :)

Also:

link:google.com

only returns 251,000 results


link to:google.com

only returns 6,180 results


linkto:google.com

returns no results

Please note the difference in the spacing.


Different versions:

link to: www.google.com
158,000 results

link to: ://www.google.com
89,700

Of course, there might always be more links on pages where spiders do
not visit or on pages where the code is wrong and the spiders reject
it.  But, at Google, you should be able to locate (and view) all
Google-spidered web pages where a specific site link is present.  You
will find the most search results when going all the way to the root
domain name. EX: reducing ://www.google.com to google.com

Should you require clarification of the information or links I have
provided, please request it and I will be happy to respond.

Best regards,
journalist-ga


SEARCH STRATEGY:

link to: google.com
(other searches with varied spacing and versions of google.com - noted
above)

---

Request for Answer Clarification by msuzdak-ga on 28 Jul 2003 13:38 PDT

Thanks, but in altavista for example- link:www.sportime.com produces
808 links while in google link: www.sportime.com produces only 54
results.  What is the difference??

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 28 Jul 2003 15:14 PDT

Hello again, Msuzdak:

Your low search returns may be due to the fact that the Google search
engine algorithms are set to point only to relevant links - that's one
of the main reasons many people choose Google for Internet searches. 
Quality seems to outweigh quantity for Google.

Google Answers is a part of Google and we Google Answers Researchers
are independent contractors - we are not privy to the inner workings
of the Google corporation.  To contact Google regarding searches, see
"Not satisfied with search results?" at
://www.google.com/contact/search.html  There is the email
mailto:search-quality@google.com at that URL.

If I may offer further clarification, please request it and I will be
happy to respond.

Best regards,
journalist-ga

Google only shows links from pages with a pagerank of 4 or higher; you
might want to try alltheweb.com instead. Here is an example:
http://www.alltheweb.com/urlinfo?q=google.com&c=web&cs=utf-8