GWT External Links Updates - how often?

[brinked]

Hello, I am a new poster to this community but a long time reader. Can anyone shine some light as to when google updates the reported external links found in webmaster tools?

Right now it reports the last found links from january 7th. How often does google update these reports? I noticed GWT updated the statistics sections reflecting the first week of this month.

Also, is there any connection to the reported external links found in GWT and the websites backlink values? For example...I have about 5 new quality backlinks I have obtained a month ago that are not yet found in GWT external links, but does google still count them in when ranking my website for given keyphrases?

[tedster]

I don't watch it very closely, but my impression has been that GWT backlinks update no more freqeuntly than once a month - and sometimes they seem to be unchanging for a lot longer.

There's no particularly informational order for the reported backlinks, at least none that I can see.