links: search result has halved, what does this mean ?

Hi all i have been building backlinks for a new site of mine and regularly checking the backlinks to my site in google by links:www.mysite.com.

The results have been slowly increasing and yesterday the search returned 1,650 results but today it is showing 550 (less than half i know)

Does this mean i have lost some backlinks somewhere ?

Does this mean i have lost some backlinks somewhere ?

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To find that out, you need to maintain and track an accurate record of backlinks created using a better tool, e.g. Majestic SEO, Open Site Explorer, SEO Spyglass, ahrefs.

The 'link:' operator only gives a sample of the links to your site, and it's not always up to date, because you are looking at stored data from the cache. But, you may still be able to see a bigger sample of links in Google Webmaster Tools.

More info:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55281

Thanks for your reply and the link, i actually have seo spyglass instaled so i'll start that up now. Thanks again for your advice it's much appreciated.