easy way to check inbound links to your site is this command in Google.com "Link:yahoo.com" the results appeared are the inbound links to the site
A could way is to go to Yahoo.com and do the following linkdomain:wwwDOTyourdomainDOTcom This will list all your backlinks Or alternative set up Google webmaster tools and add your website. After a week Google webmaster tools will tell you all the backlinks Google has found pointing to your site
site:domain.com in yahoo, new links on top result.. siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitalpoint.com&fr=sfp&bwm=i
for your article submission, you can check it fast on yahoo.com using this step type your article title using " " for example "title of your article" on yahoo search There will appear all your article on article directories.
i will suggest u yahoo site explore and google webmaster tool for this purpose. Although you can find more on google Thanks