Google Search Console is filled with wonderful tools and reports, including the links to your site report. It is designed to show you a "sampling of links to your Search Console site."
John Mueller of Google clarified, which is probably obvious to most of you, that this tool should not be used as a "real time monitor" of your links. It is not that, it is designed to show you a sampling of your links and those links do include nofollowed links and links Google may not count towards your rankings (both positive and negative).
John said "GSC shows a relevant sample of the links, it's not meant as a real-time monitor."
Are you placing links -_- ?
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) October 23, 2017
GSC shows a relevant sample of the links, it's not meant as a real-time monitor.
The confusion may come from that Google has a button in the link report to download latest links but since it is just a sampling and who knows how fast these reports find new links, John said this report should NOT be used as a real time monitor for your links.
Some SEOs are link paranoid and want to disavow any bad link as soon as possible.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
