Receptional_Andy - 8:46 pm on Nov 25, 2009 (gmt 0)

In terms of the original question:

>> Should I believe site: command or Webmaster Tools?

I trust neither. The site: operator shows you the currently "relevant" results for that particular search query. Webmaster Tools shows data for various reports that (I'm convinced) is processed in an entirely different way from that used for organic search results.

In the old days, operators like site:, link: and even general search keyword showed you everything that matched a particular query. Now, they match the results Google thinks are relevant to a particular search query.

This is of particular significance if you attempt to use numbers returned in single Google searches for statistical purposes. Unless you understand the context, the data is totally unreliable.