I always use about two or three different backlink counters when checking my backlink count. The top three that I use are…

1. Yahoo site explorer

2. Backlink Watch

3. Webmaster toolkit

Each has their pros and cons but I would have to say that the yahoo site explorer is my absolute favorite. I like the yahoo program for many reasons but the main ones are that it seems to be the most accurate and seems to update the quickest. It also appears to rank your links from most important to least.

Backlink watch is a great tool to monitor your anchor text. This is extremely important to create some variety in you anchor text. If you have the same anchor text for every backlink, google will view your links and un-natural and you could get penalties.

As for the webmastertoolkit, the only reason I use it is that it will give me results for Google, Altavista, MSN, All the Web, and Yahoo.

Please let me know other backlink checkers you use!