Here are a few easy ways to find out if a domain name became very popular, if it has back links and PageRank.

• First step is to find out if the domain name has been mentioned on the internet before, what I do is I go to Google and perform the following search: intext:”domainname.com”, or intext:”domainname”. This will tell you if the domain name had been mentioned before, remember not only links count but the time a domain name is mentioned also generates traffic.
• Next to find the link popularity of a domain I use for Google: link:domainname.com and use for Yahoo I use their Site Explorer.
• To find out the PageRank of a domain name I simply use the: google tool bar.