It's never been a "good" operator for studying backlnks because it only gives a partial sample of all the links that Google knows about. See this thread for a full discussion: Google link: operator FAQ - it's not like other search engines For that reason, most people I know use Yahoo! SiteExplorer so they can get more complete link data. Right now at least, Google's link: operator does seem a lot more limited, even than its usual condition. I just checked several domains that I work with regularly. Some of them came up with zero, when I know there are thousands of backlinks. It's not a complete washout. Strong sites - microsoft.com is a good example - still show some backlinks. By the way, that link: operator FAQ is always easly found as part of the Hot Hot Topics area, which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.
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