Q:
I have my own personal Web site and I was wondering if there was any way I could find out which sites use mine as a reference or any that just mention my site. What's the easiest way to do that? Please help!

A:
That's a very good question! If you maintain your very own Web site, whether it be for personal use, for a business or whatever, wouldn't it be interesting to find out what other Web sites link out to your homepage? Then let's do it!

Often times, other Web site administrators will come across your site and see something they would like to include on theirs. For example, this happens a lot with WorldStart's wallpaper. We get e-mails everyday from people asking if they can include our wallpaper on their Web site. Fortunately, we are very open to letting other people use our material, as long as they give us proper credit. So, if you have a business Web site and you have a daily business tip (or something similar), other people may be interested in using that on their site as well. (as long as proper credit is given!)

This type of thing is very common. Most people seem to like it, because it gives their site more recognition and it helps get the word out to more places. On the other hand, some of you may not like your material being used on other sites. That is, of course, perfectly fine, because it is your Web site. You own it, you run it and you can do what you want with it!

Either way, this next little trick I'm going to share with you will help you see which Web sites have links to yours, which in turn, anyone can see. If you like the recognition, you can always go and check to make sure the site is giving you proper credit and if you don't like the situation, you can always go to the site, look up the administrator's contact information and you can e-mail them and ask them to remove your material from their site. They have to comply with you, because it's your property! But, all in all, you can see this tip is good for either side of the track. Alright, here we go!

This trick is for the Google search engine only. alternatives to viagra Go to Google's homepage and in the search box, you're going to type a simple line: link:yoursite.com. When you're done, just click on Search.

You will, of course, change the "yoursite" part to your Web site's address. For instance, I wanted to check out how many sites have WorldStart's information linked. So, I went to Google and typed in link:worldstart.com. Several entries came up, which didn't surprise me, but it was neat to see all of them! I also tried doing one for MySpace, so I typed in link:myspace.com and even more came up for that.