Yesterday brought us the biggest news the SEO world has had in sometime - Google's Webmaster Central is showing relatively accurate and complete link data. When stacked against Yahoo!'s Site Explorer, this stuff looks pretty amazing. Webmasters are going to find themselves with a lot more link analysis time on their hands, and the value of having access to multiple account at Webmaster Central is going to be considerably higher. My favorite coverage on this comes from Search Engine Land - Google Releases New Link Reporting Tools, but I also liked Eric Ward's ideas on what could make this data even better.

Just a few screenshots of SEOmoz data before I move on to other topics:


Above is our inlinks list - almost 300,000. Yahoo! reports 458,349, and Google excludes results in supplemental, so we're seeing very similiar data from the two. The next example is a bit better for differentiating the two.


Above, Google's showing us all the links they know about to the blog post I wrote about my dad's emergency room visit a few weeks back. They've got 87 total listed to Yahoo!'s 76 (many of which are different than Google's). So, despite Google's "less-than-complete" link data, they're still supplying more than Yahoo! does sometimes and certainly showing some unique data. MSN shows 6 links (some of which neither Google nor Yahoo! listed).

Personally, I think I like Google's data the best at this point. In terms of raw numbers of links, it's the most compelling, as they have some limit on the quality or value of pages they'll display links from. While it's hard to get a competitive analysis from them, you can do a lot with those link numbers and I suspect we'll see a lot of analysis of dates and value as people start downloading and number-crunching the "up-to-1-million" links Google shows.

On to the other topics of the last week:

• On SEL today, Neil explained how the Digg friending system works and why the removal of the Top 100 list will remove some of those top users' power
• Last link from SEL (promise) - They showed off their January stats. I should show ours to help do a comparison. I'll probably do that at the end of February to compare the old version to this new incarnation.
• Barry noted that Live.com search still has a long way to go from a technology and relevance perspective. I'd have to agree.
• Andy Hagans wrote a truly robust guide to linkbaiting. I know everyone's linking to him, but it's well-deserved.
• Graywolf is doing a ton of stuff on local search this week, including an interview with our own Rebecca Kelley.
• What do you say Kirkland Googlers? Should we go over and check out the Terra Bite? I'll pick up the tab :)
  
• Guy Kawasaki tell us how he makes those nifty comic-style blog entries. Sadly, we can't reveal SEOmoz's secret formula. (I'm almost more excited for Rebecca's London comics than anything else we're doing there)
  
• Neil and Cameron from ACS have a new podcast on Webmaster Radio - congratulations!
• With his trademark chutzpah, Jim Boykin explains why he won't help new sites. While I sometimes feel the same way, SEOmoz has taken on a few new site clients and had great success. Of course, most of those have been Dugg a few times and Techcrunched once or twice, so that helps.
• Mind Valley shows us the value of proper capitalization. It's almost unbelievable what a difference it makes.
• I can't be the only one who loves the idea that clever viral marketing shut down a city. I do feel bad for Boston, but this kind of paranoia and news buzz has to be an amazing value for AQTHF.
• Pearsonified has been nominated for best designed blog of 2007. Congratulations, sir - it's well deserved.
• Google's President of Greater China, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, spoke about some of Google's plans. Ian McAnerin covered them well last week.
• Joe Whyte wrote a fun piece on Google Filters and How to Get Around Them - I don't necessarily agree with everything here, but that almost makes it more interesting.
• The Eisenberg's relaunched their blog - Grokdotcom - a few nifty items there.

And I'll end with the question I end every roundup with - What did I miss?