google webmaster tools backlinks

Hi all,
I'm trying to figure out if the backlinks list that google webmaster tools shows for a specific website are complete.
On one hand, it doesn't make much sense, I have websites that are 5 years old, are ranked really good in google and are showing only around 100 backlinks altough i've built 1000's.
On the other hand, maybe google only counts the links it shows, and those on the list are quality links that really affect my SERP.

What do u think?
I do remember seeing a video where someone from google did say that the backlinks in the webmaster tools are supposed to be what google sees as backlinks...

Google only lets you see a tiny amount of the backlinks it actually recognizes

Matt Cutts has publicly stated many times that in your Webmaster Tools, Google will show you all of your backlinks.

However, I have never found that to be the case and even Yahoo Site Explorer (theoretically only showing 20-30% of a site's backlinks) shows many more backlinks than Webmaster Tools for my own sites.

The best tool by far is SEO Spyglass - even the free version is pretty good - and it blows away all other backlink reporting tools.

is this a tool? or its online checking? if its a tool can u upload it on mediafire? thnx

open site explorer is worth a look - it's from the guys at SEOMoz - just G it

Google is not Yahoo! This is why there are differences between the two backlink tools. I am not saying that Google is showing all that THEY have but it will be different to what Yahoo has found.

When you are trying to increase your SERP in Google, all that mattes is what Google finds. Who cares what Altavista or the numerous other indexes that SEO Spy Glass includes unless you are trying to game those engines? Do these other engines have the power to keep an up to date index of live and active links?

Sure, do a proper check on them after the numbers come in but only pay attention to the current status of the links.

Through my experience, GWT has been the most accurate count of live and active links BUT it takes a bit longer to update. I will use the Google list to find out what I think are the quality link drops and go from there.

The only time that the quanity/quality of links really matter is in the initial keyword research phase. The number that YSE returns should be enough to calculate if you can squeeze into the top 10.

After that you should be focused on results rather than numbers. Keep building quality links until you reach your goal. The number of links doesn't matter, the Google SERP is what matters now.

well i guess we really can't know what google show as links and what it count as links...
they do claim they show everything, but u never know, they do have reasons to hide which links are working so it's a 50%.
thanks for the input guys.