Let’s say you need to check the links to a web site; how to do it? The best solution – Register for Google Webmaster Tools (you need to control ownership of the web site) and you can see in there about 80% of the links that Google “sees” linking to your web site; The quickest solution – Search with Yahoo! Site Explorer (it only shows you 1,000 links to your web site, be them old or new, nofollow or dofollow, on the same web site or on different web site, important links or not; but it’s a fast way); The optimal solution for checking on the competition – If you can’t control ownership of a web site (your competition, for example), the best solution is Open Site Explorer (register for a free account and start exploring; it may see some links which Google might discard, it may not see a lot of the links that Google sees, but it’s a relatively good solution); The extreme solution – check out this article (and this one) for other in-depth solutions for checking links. Hope it helps.

I like ads a lot; I generally don’t watch TV; but when I do watch it, instead of sports, movies, music, documentaries, I like to watch TV ads; It doesn’t take me a lot to see 90% of the most representative ads on the Romanian television, so I stop after a while; but while the fun lasts, I do watch quite a few ads (and most more than one time); Why do I watch them? If you think about it, the ad creators invest a ridiculous amount of money just for 30 seconds of movie; they pack lots of things in 30 seconds; Also, I want to learn how do others manipulate me, and I am very careful with this at ads; Finally, some are fun. And you?