Link Search Analysis

SEOmoz Blog, in its All the Different Ways to Calculate Link Numbers (and the Best One) article, gives an excellent overview of the issues with link searching, especially when looking for a total number of results. It primarily compares Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Of Google: "With the crappiest numbers around, it's a wonder that anyone pays attention to them at all." MSN also gets hammered: "MSN's numbers, while relatively more accurate than Google, are still largely useless." Yahoo! gets the nod here. While the focus of this link search comparison is the reported number of results, the issues also apply to link searching when looking at the content of the results.