Link Popularity - LinkSurvey

LinkSurvey [http://www.antssoft.com/linksurvey/index.htm], developed and marketed by AntsSoft [http://www.antssoft.com/index.htm], is the latest entry into the realm of link popularity software. It is comparable to RankSpy, link popularity software I reviewed in March 2002.

Discussion of Features
LinkSurvey supports 13 search engines: Google, Hotbot, All the Web [Fast], Lycos, AltaVista, MSN, Yahoo, All the Sites, AOL, Excite, Sympatico, Goeureka and iWon. This covers most of the major search engines. Notably absent from the list are LookSmart/Wisenut, Teoma/AskJeeves and Open Directory Project. The user may select any or all supported search engines for link popularity reports.

The software offers three types of reports: Link Popularity, Single Site; Index Assessment, Single Site; and Link Popularity, Multiple Sites. Each report contains the URL of the page that is linking to the specified domain(s) and the total number of "hits" or links that were found for the specified domain(s).

Link Popularity, Single Site Report
Simply put, this checks the selected search engines for any pages that link to the specified domain.

Index Assessment, Single Site Report
This report checks the selected search engines for pages from the specified domain that have been indexed.

Link Popularity, Multiple Sites Report
Using this report, you can see how your site compares in link popularity with your competition. The program checks link popularity for all domains specified.

Additionally, the program can save/export each of the above reports into the following formats: .txt, .html, .csv [Comma Separated Value] and .xls [MS Excel]. Finally, LinkSurvey sports an embedded multi-tab browser for viewing pages listed in the above reports. This browser can also highlight links on the page for quicker link identification.

Analysis of Software
AntsSoft proclaims that LinkSurvey is "an advanced link popularity analysis software, which can check link popularity of multiple relative websites, combine result to spreadsheet and generate detailed link popularity report for you." However, I found this statement to be misleading. LinkSurvey does not analyze the links it finds. It only counts the number of links found in each search engine and the total number of links found overall for each domain specified.

Despite this misleading statement, LinkSurvey can still be a useful tool. While the Link Popularity, Single Site report really does not tell the site owner much, the Index Assessment report will help the site owner identify pages that have yet to be indexed by the various search engines. By analyzing this report, you can check your site navigation to ensure that all pages on your site can be crawled by search engine spiders, correct any problems found and either resubmit those pages or let the spiders find them on their own. Additionally, the Link Popularity, Multiple Sites report can compare the number of links for competing sites at the same time. This is useful only in the sense that it gives you a glance at how your link popularity campaign compares with your competition. This report should be tempered with the fact that link quality is normally more important than link quantity.

The ability to export each report into various formats is a nice feature, which allows you to send these reports to clients, although, in my opinion, it is likely that an explanation will need to accompany the report. I also do not find much use for the reports, except for the Index Assessment report, and I doubt that clients will find much use for them either.

One other thing that I noticed is that the total number of "hits" or links found for the site I used to test this software varied between the Link Popularity reports. The Link Popularity, Single Site report found 140 links and the Link Popularity, Multiple Sites report found 123 links. This strikes me as odd [although I am aware that there are inconsistencies in the search engines themselves], especially since I ran the reports within minutes of each other.

Finally, I find it curious that the developers included Excite as one of the search engines it supports, since it's been a while since Excite was sold and converted to a metasearch engine, using Dogpile results. You might as well deselect Excite when running a report and save bandwidth.

Missing Features
One feature that I would like to see added to LinkSurvey is the ability to filter out internal links in the Link Popularity reports. Link popularity is mostly about gathering high quality external links, so this information is not needed and inflates the quantity of links. Also, if you are comparing link popularity between your site and the competition, the site with the most pages may likely show a larger number of links, due to the large number of internal links. This feature does not exist in RankSpy either.

OptiLink does not filter internal links either, but as a true link analysis program, there is extremely useful information to be found from internal links, but not in link counting software such as LinkSurvey or RankSpy.

Final Assessment
LinkSurvey costs $40, which is the same price as RankSpy. However, RankSpy also requires an annual licensing fee, whereas LinkSurvey does not. Since LinkSurvey supports more search engines than RankSpy, allows you to check link popularity for multiple sites simultaneously, and costs less in the long run, I rate LinkSurvey slightly ahead of RankSpy. LinkSurvey is a decent program if all you want to do is count links. However, if you really want to analyze your incoming links for various important parameters, LinkSurvey falls short. It does not analyze links in the way that OptiLink does, despite the claims the developers make. If you are looking for true link analysis, I suggest that you skip LinkSurvey and spend the extra $57 and purchase OptiLink.

I wish to thank Lewis Hong of AntsSoft for a registered version of LinkSurvey to use for this review.

[Editor's Note: Remember that using software to send automated queries to Google violates its terms of service. While it is entirely up to you how to use this software, we strongly suggest that you refrain from using this software to automatically query Google's database. Using this software to query Google could result in Google blocking your IP address or even banning your site.]

Announcement
On September 9-11, 2002, WebBuilder Conference will invade Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada for three days of web design and development discussion and training. Also on the agenda are a couple of sessions regarding search engine marketing. I'll be there covering the first two days of the conference for the ACWS newsletter. For more information about the WebBuilder Conference, go to http://www.webbuilderconference.com/. Send me an e-mail if you decide to attend or already planning to attend, and we'll try to get together sometime during the conference.

I had actually wanted to make this announcement in last month's newsletter, but was waiting to hear if I was going to be granted a press pass to attend.

***About Bill Gentry: Bill Gentry has been a professional Web designer since 1999 and a Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing specialist with Look Sharp Designs since February 2000.

Review may not be reprinted without permission of Look Sharp Designs. To request permission for reprinting rights, please contact Look Sharp Designs.

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Link Popularity - LinkSurvey LinkSurvey [http://www.antssoft.com/linksurvey/index.htm], developed and marketed by AntsSoft [http://www.antssoft.com/index.htm], is the latest entry into the realm of link popularity software. It is comparable to RankSpy, link popularity software I reviewed in March 2002. Discussion of Features LinkSurvey supports 13 search engines: Google, Hotbot, All the Web [Fast], Lycos, AltaVista, MSN, Yahoo, All the Sites, AOL, Excite, Sympatico, Goeureka and iWon. This covers most of the major search engines. Notably absent from the list are LookSmart/Wisenut, Teoma/AskJeeves and Open Directory Project. The user may select any or all supported search engines for link popularity reports. The software offers three types of reports: Link Popularity, Single Site; Index Assessment, Single Site; and Link Popularity, Multiple Sites. Each report contains the URL of the page that is linking to the specified domain(s) and the total number of "hits" or links that were found for the specified domain(s). Link Popularity, Single Site Report Simply put, this checks the selected search engines for any pages that link to the specified domain. Index Assessment, Single Site Report This report checks the selected search engines for pages from the specified domain that have been indexed. Link Popularity, Multiple Sites Report Using this report, you can see how your site compares in link popularity with your competition. The program checks link popularity for all domains specified. Additionally, the program can save/export each of the above reports into the following formats: .txt, .html, .csv [Comma Separated Value] and .xls [MS Excel]. Finally, LinkSurvey sports an embedded multi-tab browser for viewing pages listed in the above reports. This browser can also highlight links on the page for quicker link identification. Analysis of Software AntsSoft proclaims that LinkSurvey is "an advanced link popularity analysis software, which can check link popularity of multiple relative websites, combine result to spreadsheet and generate detailed link popularity report for you." However, I found this statement to be misleading. LinkSurvey does not analyze the links it finds. It only counts the number of links found in each search engine and the total number of links found overall for each domain specified. Despite this misleading statement, LinkSurvey can still be a useful tool. While the Link Popularity, Single Site report really does not tell the site owner much, the Index Assessment report will help the site owner identify pages that have yet to be indexed by the various search engines. By analyzing this report, you can check your site navigation to ensure that all pages on your site can be crawled by search engine spiders, correct any problems found and either resubmit those pages or let the spiders find them on their own. Additionally, the Link Popularity, Multiple Sites report can compare the number of links for competing sites at the same time. This is useful only in the sense that it gives you a glance at how your link popularity campaign compares with your competition. This report should be tempered with the fact that link quality is normally more important than link quantity. The ability to export each report into various formats is a nice feature, which allows you to send these reports to clients, although, in my opinion, it is likely that an explanation will need to accompany the report. I also do not find much use for the reports, except for the Index Assessment report, and I doubt that clients will find much use for them either. One other thing that I noticed is that the total number of "hits" or links found for the site I used to test this software varied between the Link Popularity reports. The Link Popularity, Single Site report found 140 links and the Link Popularity, Multiple Sites report found 123 links. This strikes me as odd [although I am aware that there are inconsistencies in the search engines themselves], especially since I ran the reports within minutes of each other. Finally, I find it curious that the developers included Excite as one of the search engines it supports, since it's been a while since Excite was sold and converted to a metasearch engine, using Dogpile results. You might as well deselect Excite when running a report and save bandwidth. Missing Features One feature that I would like to see added to LinkSurvey is the ability to filter out internal links in the Link Popularity reports. Link popularity is mostly about gathering high quality external links, so this information is not needed and inflates the quantity of links. Also, if you are comparing link popularity between your site and the competition, the site with the most pages may likely show a larger number of links, due to the large number of internal links. This feature does not exist in RankSpy either. OptiLink does not filter internal links either, but as a true link analysis program, there is extremely useful information to be found from internal links, but not in link counting software such as LinkSurvey or RankSpy. Final Assessment LinkSurvey costs $40, which is the same price as RankSpy. However, RankSpy also requires an annual licensing fee, whereas LinkSurvey does not. Since LinkSurvey supports more search engines than RankSpy, allows you to check link popularity for multiple sites simultaneously, and costs less in the long run, I rate LinkSurvey slightly ahead of RankSpy. LinkSurvey is a decent program if all you want to do is count links. However, if you really want to analyze your incoming links for various important parameters, LinkSurvey falls short. It does not analyze links in the way that OptiLink does, despite the claims the developers make. If you are looking for true link analysis, I suggest that you skip LinkSurvey and spend the extra $57 and purchase OptiLink. I wish to thank Lewis Hong of AntsSoft for a registered version of LinkSurvey to use for this review. [Editor's Note: Remember that using software to send automated queries to Google violates its terms of service. While it is entirely up to you how to use this software, we strongly suggest that you refrain from using this software to automatically query Google's database. Using this software to query Google could result in Google blocking your IP address or even banning your site.] Announcement On September 9-11, 2002, WebBuilder Conference will invade Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada for three days of web design and development discussion and training. Also on the agenda are a couple of sessions regarding search engine marketing. I'll be there covering the first two days of the conference for the ACWS newsletter. For more information about the WebBuilder Conference, go to http://www.webbuilderconference.com/. Send me an e-mail if you decide to attend or already planning to attend, and we'll try to get together sometime during the conference. I had actually wanted to make this announcement in last month's newsletter, but was waiting to hear if I was going to be granted a press pass to attend. ***About Bill Gentry: Bill Gentry has been a professional Web designer since 1999 and a Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing specialist with Look Sharp Designs since February 2000. Review may not be reprinted without permission of Look Sharp Designs. To request permission for reprinting rights, please contact Look Sharp Designs.	Guarantees Privacy Policy Terms of Use Get targeted global traffic with SEO Copyright © 2002 Look Sharp Designs. All rights reserved.

Link Popularity - LinkSurvey

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