Google different reports the links for large and small sites
Google has repeatedly said that a report on incoming links in the Search Console is a fetch of a URL, not a complete list. The representative of the search John Mueller said that for large and small sites this report is generated in different ways.
So, small resources, he shows almost all links, whereas in a large sample of the most relevant of them.
"We have no strict rules as to what to show and what not. In fact, this report is a selection of links. At smaller sites it may be closer to all obtained their links, and have larger resources here is the sample most relevant of them", — said the Googler.Muller was also asked to clarify what he meant by "smaller sites", but he did not give a clear answer to this question:
"I don't know where you would have to hold that line. Here we are talking about the limited storage available for links in Search Console. Therefore, at a certain point we start to cut the redundant data".Listen to Muller's response, starting at 41:43 of the video below:
The webmasters who oversee different sites, these differences are likely obvious. The same experts, which lead to only small sites should notice a change in reporting the growth of their resources and the number of incoming links.
Earlier it was reported that the infrastructure update Search Console could temporarily affect the data in the report "Links to your site".