The Importance of a Google link: operator
A common cause for concern between inexperienced web site owners is the Google link: operator. It supposed to show sites that link to other sites, but it only shows a small random sample of the sites that Google knows about that a linking to the site being asked about. The better or higher it ranks in the search engine’s results if there will be more links to a site. This is why webmasters or website owners are so concerned about links to a site. When the use the Google link: operator and do not see all the links that they know about they get concerned and think they have been penalised by Google.