Google’s Nathan Johns said at PubCon yesterday that you do not need to use third-party link tools, that all you need to worry about are the links reported in Google Search Console’s link tool. This is despite Google’s tool only showing you a sample of the links you really have.

Here is Jen’s tweet covering this statement from his talk:

Now, to be clear, Google has said this before. Two different Googlers prior to Nathan said you do not need third-party linking tools. Here are those quotes:

Aaseesh said “You can get a good idea of your backlink profile from the links provided in the ‘Links to Your Site’ section under ‘Traffic’ in your Webmaster Tools account. You can use that download a sample of your site’s backlinks from there and remove any unnatural link you find.”

John Mueller confirmed that saying that you do not need to use third-party tools and that Google Webmaster Tools is fine. He did say, sometimes third-party tools may help with cleaner reports but not needed.

So what Nathan said yesterday is not new, John said even with the sample of links, it is fine:

Of course, most SEOs probably won’t believe in this advice:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: