MSN Backlinks tool - different results

Initial search shows high numbers, but subsequent searches show much lower

[gatonegro]

We have been checking the number of incoming links to our sites from MSN pretty regularly and are seeing some odd trends - just wanted to see if everyone is seeing them.

Using MSN's own "More results from this site" with one of our sites resulted in 134 pages. As you go through each page of results, it stops progressing at page 4. Re-running the query now only results in 36 pages.

We're seeing the exact same results using 3rd-party tools (ie: Marketleap's). At this point, we're running each URL through their system twice to make sure they are accurate.

[thecuezone]

Yes, I noticed my backlinks doubled overnight a few days ago and have stayed that way. I saw another post somewhere saying they thought it was bug and MSN were working on it...

[Dijkgraaf]

Well with my domain, on the first page it says 908 results, on the second page 82 results.
I think this is due to the fact that on the first page the results include the pages from my sites (it lists two of them with a more from www.mydomain.tld link)
Doing a search of site:www.mydomain.tld link:www.mydomain.tld results in 838 results.
908-838 = 70.

It is also interesting that when you drop the www from the searches.
For site:mydomain.tld link:mydomain.tld it return more results (844 instead of 838).

[gatonegro]

The results I'm getting are from the same exact query - nothing is changing except for the number of reported links. The links usually include those from our own site(s), but they're visible when the # of rankings is reported high, and when they're reported low.

Must be a bug! I'm puzzled...

[jd01]

I believe there was a change in the actual query used that may be effecting results of backlinks. link: in MSN should show the links to a specific page. linkdomain: should show links into the entire domain.

The results from the link: command seem to be all over the place, but linkdomain: has been fairly consistent (for me anyway). This seems to indicate that they are updating the link: results, maybe removing all the domain results from the previous link: query or updating the counts of inbounds for specific pages?

Justin