There are 2 main types of links and several ways or methods that optimizers and search engine experts use in order to generate links from other sites to the website being optimized. It is always the goal of any link building campaign to have an optimal number of links pointing to their site, however the quantity of links doesn't always equate to higher rankings. The first type is reciprocal links. These are links that point you’re your website to another in return, the other website has a link that points directly to your website. The next is one-way links. One way links are links that point from another site to your site, with no reciprocal links. One way links are given more importance in the search engines algorithm than reciprocal links. One method for creating links to your website is directory submission and article submission. These are two different ways to get links to your website. The first method (directory submission) places a link of your website with a couple lines of descriptive text about your website, in a directory of other sites and businesses. The second method (article submission) places links of your site along with brief articles and press releases on article directories, blogs, and other discussion forums
How long does it take for yahoo or google to find a new link that's pointing at you? I've written quite a few articles for article base, and then elsewhere, but I have yet to see the search engines recognizing those links.
Usually it takes a while for them to show up at backlink checkers' results. Regardless, they do get counted and they do affect your SERPs. To find your articles, don't search by keyword but by the author name you used.