Can someone please explain the relative importance of the links that Google list when you look at their measure of pages linking to your site as against the much higher number of links found by checking the pages that 'contain the term'?
At present my site shows 43 link pages but 736 containing the links. Which links are counted as important determinants for ranking?
I can see no difference in the value for the 2 categories.
Even The Google Directory at directory.google.com/.../Business_and_Economy/ Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Commercial_Services/Marketing

only appears as a page containing the link rather than a page actually linking.
Does that mean Google gives no value to their own directory?

Hoping for enlightenment!

google backlinks currently = complete garbage

they mean nothing.

search Yahoo! or another engine for a more meainingful backlink sampling

I recommend you to use RustyBrick's Link Popularity Tool (http://www.rustybrick.com/link_analysis.php) and follow this thread (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=579) here at SEW Forums. You can also try Optilink and choose the Google option. Both will check the backlinks in much better detail than just looking at the number on the websearch result, which as Aaron puts it, doesn't tell you much.

Buena Suerte!

I recommend you to use RustyBrick's Link Popularity Tool (http://www.rustybrick.com/link_analysis.php) and follow this thread (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=579) here at SEW Forums. You can also try Optilink and choose the Google option. Both will check the backlinks in much better detail than just looking at the number on the websearch result, which as Aaron puts it, doesn't tell you much.

Buena Suerte!
with optilink you can query multiple search databases at the same time, filter out internal backlinks, and mesh them all together

Do you think Optilink is worth $149.00?

Do you think Optilink is worth $149.00?
IMHO to me as an seo yes

Second that!

I actually use both RustyBrick's tool and Optilink just for checks & balances verification. Well worth my investment.

"Which links are counted as important determinants for ranking?"

I don't think anyone outside of Google or one of the other SE's can answer that at 100% correctness, but, my experience as an SEO is that the best backlinks usually come from pages with a low number of outbound links, pages that are related to your site theme (or the theme of the page on your site they are pointing to), pages that use good descriptive anchor text to link to your page or sites that are considered authority sites on one scale or another. Again, in my experience anyway ;).

google backlinks currently = complete garbage

Actually I agree - but for a different reason. Much like PageRank the higher the value/level does not directly translate to higher ranked positions - and I'll assume the gauging of backlinks is to better address "ranked results".

Increasingly backlink check tools will lie... or more correctly not be able to associate backlink number (and URLs) to gauge how much work is needed to move up in SERPs, or remain in a position.

More and more SEOs are changing the pattern, the thought process in link development and as an example - I can get far more better ranks and more results listings using 100 links compared to 1,000 and in some instances 10,000/20,000.

In these instances the previous mention tools would show monster-power on a Google 20K backlink page and my 100 backlinks as a web slug and no worries... yet I rank higher.