The link:website operator in Google returns a small percentage of all links to your website. While it has a certain algorithm behind it (bigger sites return more results) it isn’t the exact number of links that are counted in G’s search position algorithm. Backlink drops (0 backlinks) are common when a website is new or when a PR update (more on that shortly) is in progress. Generally when a webmaster has spent some time developing backlinks and sees them drop he/she is concerned. 90% of the time there is nothing to worry about - just wait it out and don’t lose sleep over it - concentrate on what really matters - building relevant quality one way links to your site.
Recently Google introduced new tool to the Google Webmasters Central (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview) that shows very accurately the number of back-links tracked down. This tool is extremely useful and makes competitive list of all websites linking to each page it also underlines the importance of good back-links into the new ranking algorithm that was recently introduced.
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