Advanced Link Manager

Today, we’re reviewing Advanced Link Manager v7.1 build 6 from the team at Caphyon Ltd.  We’ll also take a look at Caphyon’s Advanced Web Ranking software tool.

As you are well aware by now, I write software …

I also create web sites.

Now, I was searching Google for something better to help me keep track of my link-backs.  Currently, I use a purpose written database that I created many years ago, and has done the job admirably … to a point.

My database does the basics, and it makes things easier than doing everything manually, but it’s not all that sophisticated.  So, I was searching for a sophisticated link manager program to help organise the chaos that can be tracking links to your site.  You know the problem … you’ve created a web site and you are performing the normal SEO tasks to get more exposure for your site.  One of the key tasks to perform is to get back-links to your site from other relevant sites on the web to increase your link popularity.

So, what’s so hard about that I hear you ask ? Well, you are right, it doesn’t have to be … it’s fine to do the basics yourself :

1. Find links back to your site and enter them into a spreadsheet or database
2. Evaluate the quality of the site linking to you
3. Find relevant sites that you want to exchange links with
4. Ensure that those sites are high quality and that they really are relevant to your site
5. Find a contact email address for the owner of the site you want to link with
6. Email the owner of the site
7. Record the URL, contact details, and the date you tried to contact them
8. Keep a record of the email you actually sent them so that you can refer to it later
9. Wait for a reply from the owner of the other site
10. Manually create a link to their site when you get affirmative replies
11. Periodically verify that their link to your site still exists
12. Repeat for every single link you want to create to your site

Hang on a second … that really is hard !!

That’s quite a lot of work, which needs to be repeated on a regular basis and has quite a bit of information to keep track of. Surely someone has written some quality software to make all of that much, much easier …

Of course they have !! The team at Caphyon have written Advanced Link Manager to do all of that and much more.  Let’s take a closer look at Advanced Link Manager, what it offers, and how you can use it to build your web site’s link popularity.

Advanced Link Manager

Advanced Link Manager

When I stumbled across the web site for this piece of software, it looked too good to be true.  There are some pretty big claims on the web site about the capabilities, feature and benefits. The web site itself is modern, stylish and very professional, so it’s a very easy decision to download the trial version and give it a go.

If that wasn’t enough to convince me to try it, then the full list of features and comparison charts showing the features available in each of the three versions (Standard, Professional, Enterprise) was more than enough to do so.

Download

The download file for this link manager is quite a large one (around 68MB) but came down smoothly and quickly.  There were no noticeable pauses or slowness which might be attributable to a slow server. No problems in this area at all.

Installation

Similarly, installation was a painless experience. I chose a Typical install and found myself having to answer minimal questions to get underway. No issues with the installation process at all. So far, so good, and painless too …

Having installed successfully, it was time to check out the look and feel, the usability and features of what so far had been a very good experience.

Doing the job …

I have to admit to being a little overwhelmed when I first started up Advanced Link Manager, but my fears were soon put to rest when I was taken straight into the “Getting Started” tutorial.  I was impressed with the Help provided and by the simple, easy to use interface, and it was obvious that it is more than just a link manager.

Although there are many tabs to get to grips with, everything is explained if you first make your way through the help sections provided.

Even the standard edition of Advanced Link Manager (Can we call is ALM for short ?) is packed with features.  Let’s go by the numbers from our list of tasks above and see whether ALM can help …

1) Find links back to your site and enter them into a spreadsheet or database

The standard version does this for you.  In fact, it’s one of the first things that you should do when you set up a project for the first time. Choose the search engines that you want to check for backlinks and ‘go’. ALM will search for backlinks and record them in its internal database.

2) Evaluate the quality of the site linking to you

ALM has a built-in tool (Analyze Domain Quality) to analyze the quality of domains. Simply enter the domain name to be checked and the tool looks up the Page Rank, link count average, and various statistics from Compete.com.
You will need the Enterprise edition to use this feature.

3) Find relevant sites that you want to exchange links with

The “Find Link Partners” wizard helps you find web sites based on your desired keywords and advanced search results from the search engines you choose to include.
You will need the Enterprise edition to use this feature.

4) Ensure that those sites are high quality and that they really are relevant to your site

The “Find Link Partners” wizard tells you the Rank of the pages found which may be beneficial to get links back to your site.
You will need the Enterprise edition to use this feature.

5) Find a contact email address for the owner of the site you want to link with

ALM extracts this information for you automatically from the WHOIS information for the domain name.

6)Email the owner of the site

ALM has a built in email client and you can set up template

7) Record the URL, contact details, and the date you tried to contact them

ALM stores this all for you automatically.

8 ) Keep a record of the email you actually sent them so that you can refer to it later

ALM stores a history of the messages that you send, so you can easily refer back to them.

9) Wait for a reply from the owner of the other site

You’ll have to do this one on your own

10) Manually create a link to their site when you get affirmative replies

ALM contains a wizard which allows you to generate link pages based on your custom templates, for all the sites you have exchanged links with.

11) Periodically verify that their link to your site still exists

Once again, ALM can do this automatically for all of the links that are recorded as pointing back at your site.  It will go through each one and check that it really is linking to your site.

12) Repeat for every single link you want to create to your site

With a tool like Advanced Link Manager, keeping track of all of your links is easy and it offers so much more.

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking

I was pleasantly surprised (I didn’t read the download information fully ) to find that what I had downloaded, was actually a bundled installation package containing both Advanced Link Manager and Advanced Web Ranking. So, I actually already had Advanced Web Ranking installed and crying out to be tried out after I finished looking at Advanced Link Manager.

Doing the job …

So … you have gone to all the trouble of performing your on-page optimization.  You have used Advanced Link Manager to get inbound links to your web site (ie off page optimization).

What does it all add up to ?

How do you know that all your hard work is paying off and increasing your search engine ranking ?

That’s where Advanced Web Ranking comes in. You need a tool to actually measure and track your success, and you do not want to have to do the search manually for all of your relevant keywords across all search engines.

Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) will do this all for you.  Simply create a new project, enter the websites you are wanting to evaluate, the keywords you want to check on, and the search engines to check.  Then … GO !!!

AWR performs all the search engine queries for you (just as if a human was doing it) and reports on the results.

It tracks your results over time and allows you to view your information in chart form or report format.  AWR also includes a Keyword Research Tool.  It’s a must have to check your website ranking !!!

Our View …

Advanced Link Manager is a top rate piece of software. We give it a 9.5 out of 10.

Advanced Web Ranking is one of the most useful pieces of software most webmasters could ever come across.
It also gets a 9.5 out of 10 from us and a high recommendation to download and try it out for yourself.

When selling software anywhere, but especially on the Internet, it is important to prepare first.  It’s an easy thing to say … “I’m going to sell my software on the Internet”, but have you really thought about it ?

• How much will you charge for a license for your software ?
• Is it a per user license ? a site license ? a per seat license ?
• What is your target market ?
• How much will customers be prepared to pay ?
• Are you going to give your potential customers a free trial first ?
• Or are you going to make them pay up front before they get the software ?
• Do you offer discounts for the purchase of multiple licenses ?
• How will you protect your software from piracy ?
• How will you take payment ?
• How will your customers find you ?
• How will you promote your software ?
• Will you use affiliates ?
• Do you have a web site set up ?
• How do you get Google to index your web site ?

I’ll deal with all of these questions and more in the Selling Software – Preparing For Sale series of posts over the coming weeks.

iPod Nano 5th Generation (blue)

I got my new Apple iPod Nano (5th Generation) today … yes, I got the 16GB version as the difference between the 8GB and the 16GB as far as price was negligible.

My last iPod was a 2nd gen Nano … and boy has technology moved on

The 5th generation Nano is nicely styled, very lightweight and just looks plain sexy.  The screen is bigger, the touch wheel slightly smaller …

It plays MP3 (of course) and video in M4V format (of course) … but it also has a built in FM radio, a speaker, a microphone … and a camera to take MP4/H.264 video at resolutions up to 640 x 480.

I’m having trouble filling it up and have already subscribed to a whole lot of podcasts which I listen to on a daily basis

Nice !!!

As you know from a previous post, I am running Windows 7 Pro x64 …

I have used ZoneAlarm for a number of years to protect my personal PC, with excellent results … yes, there was the occasional version that caused problems such as hanging or conflicts … but, by and large ZoneAlarm is an excellent piece of software that I highly recommend.

Since the Windows 7 beta came out, I had been checking the ZoneLabs.com web site to see if their would be a Windows 7 version.  Indications were that there would be, but it wasn’t evident when I checked for it.

So, before I upgraded to Windows 7, I did my research and found that Windows 7 versions were available … I decided that one of these would probably do the trick.

ZoneAlarm Extreme Security

ZoneAlarm Extreme Security

I should mention at this point that I used to run AVG v8.5 as my preferred AntiVirus solution.  This time around, I wondered whether I should be looking at a combined solution.  I had a fresh install of Windows 7 … I had an image … nothing to lose right ?

Right !!  Not only does ZoneAlarm Extreme Security work like a charm … it is a full featured, integrated security suite which covers my antivirus needs as well as the traditional firewall role.

Two Way Firewall

As you would expect, ZoneAlarm Extreme Security acts as a 2-way firewall and stops inbound attacks from the Internet as well as stopping anything from ‘talking out’ from your computer without your permission.  This is a standard ZoneAlarm feature and no less than you would expect from any of their products.

Anti Virus

This version of ZoneAlarm  has built in Anti Virus and Anti Spyware.  Scanning is on-access so files are checked when you use them.  The signature updates are regular and unobtrusive.  In fact, you hardly notice the antivirus feature until it detects something and tells you about it.  Once again though, this is a good feature, but not unheard of in other products.

OS Firewall

I love this feature !! The text from the ZoneLabs.com site states :

“Monitors changes within your computer to spot and stop new attacks that bypass traditional anti-virus protection….

At ZoneAlarm, we added outbound protection and then went beyond that to create the equivalent of guards who are trained to spot and stop suspicious behavior. We call this the OSFirewall, because it goes where dangerous programs go—to the operating system level. It monitors program installation, registry and file changes, keyboard and mouse code control, and over 40 other potentially dangerous behaviors.”

I can tell you now that this is the feature that makes ZoneAlarm Extreme Security different, special … and worthwhile.  I have already had occurrences of reputable downloaded software which after install has tried to run something or set up autorun options which I hadn’t asked for.  ZoneAlarm caught them, warned me and allowed me to stop them.

ZoneAlarm Extreme Security includes a lot of other features including parental controls, anti-spam, browser protection, and privacy and identity protection.

I’m hooked and wouldn’t be without it.