When I looked at one of those programs that automatically tells you how many backlinks a site has, I came across terms I cannot distinguish. For the same site, I found that the site has 20 backlinks according to G, but more than 3,000 "contain url" links. What's the difference?

Thanks.

Google does not report all the backlinks that it actually recognizes. To get a better idea of the total number of backlinks, use the link:http://www.domain.com at Yahoo.

The more than 3,000 "contain url" links could be referring the amount of occurrences the URL appears on web pages but not directly linked.

David:
The 3000 + links that are broken out separately by Google are the links that are returned by typing "www.yourdomainname.com" with the quote marks into Google. Does that give you any more info that can help me make sense of it? It's quite a split: 20 "backlinks" according to one count, but 3000 + of these.
Thanks.

David:
The 3000 + links that are broken out separately by Google are the links that are returned by typing "www.yourdomainname.com" with the quote marks into Google. Does that give you any more info that can help me make sense of it? It's quite a split: 20 "backlinks" according to one count, but 3000 + of these.
Thanks.
The backlinks as has been stated above and in other places here are a limited count of the links to your site - THEY ARE NOT AN ACCURATE LIST.
When you do a search for your domainname in " " all that you are getting back are the number of pages that have it written on the page (IS NOT THE SAME THING AS A LINK).