Hi folks. I've made a kind of investigation about the SEO Software for Reciprocal Link Exchange and would like to share this review with you. Hope it helps you to save time and make right choice which software to use for link exchange. Here are 15 tools with information about the price, homepage and feature-set. I deliberately don't describe Web-based(PHP) RLE software yet. They have their own pros and cons and I am going to review them a bit later. There's no marketing bullshit (except my comments sure . Just pure facts. Feel free to use this data as you want. If you find any tool not in this list or some important feature missed in this review just let me know and I`ll add it. All the tools are ordered by my personal predilection.
Name: LinkAssistant URL: http://www.link-assistant.com/ Version: 2.0.2 Price: $99.95 Trial limitations: 30 link partners Usability: 9 (Maximum is 10. The more the better) Link partners search: Yes Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: Yes Sending personalized emails: Yes Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Advanced (Tree) Full links pages customization: Yes Link partners backlinks check: Yes Link partners statuses: Yes Updating multiple link partners in a single click: Yes Built-in browser: Yes Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: LinkMachine.net, LinksManager.com & Link-Swapper.com + semi-automatical complete for any other forms Platform: Windows, MacOS X, Linux Unique useful features: Receiving and organizing emails, import from another project\ARELIS, ability to work through Google\Yahoo API, customizable workspace, context help, forum My Humble Rating: 10 (Maximum is 10. The more the better) My Humble Comments: Really professional environment. Pretty fast support. A bit complicated link page generation but allows full control and customization. Requires Java which is free for download but is 13Mb. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: WebLink SEO URL: http://www.weblinkseo.com/ Version: 2.0 Price: $89 Trial: 15 days Usability: 8 Link partners search: Yes Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: Yes Sending personalized emails: Yes Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Advanced (Tree) Full links pages customization: No Link partners backlinks check: Yes Link partners statuses: Limited Updating multiple link partners in a single click: No Built-in browser: Yes (Without JavaScript and CSS support) Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: Buggy Platform: Windows Unique useful features: FTP upload, directory submission, keyword optimization report, SEOElite-like site analysis. My Humble Rating: 9 My Humble Comments: Young but pretty fast growing software. In spite of poorly designed user interface has a lot of usefull features. Very reasonable price! Setup is 20Mb. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: ARELIS URL: http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/ Version: 4.4.2 Price: $99.95 (for two sites only)/$299.95(for unlimited number of sites) Trial: 100 link partners, emails are sent to your own address and the links in your link directory point to a generic page. Usability: 7 Link partners search: Yes Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Yes (one at a time) Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: Yes Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Yes Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: Yes Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows Unique useful features: Project statistics. My Humble Rating: 9 My Humble Comments: Time proven software. The biggest drawback is one-by-one emailing to link partners + it doesn't show Google PR. Was last updated more than a year ago. Too expensive version for unlimited sites. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: SEO Studio URL: http://www.trendmx.com/ Version: 2.0.4 Price: $67.00/$157.99 + annual fee Trial: available Usability: 6 Link partners search: By keywords only Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Yes Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Yes Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 8 My Humble Comments: Weak RLE management part. But has a lot useful SEO modules. Especially for such low price -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: WebLinkPro URL: http://www.artistictechworks.com/weblinkpro.html Version: 1.0.2 Price: $30 Trial: Limited functionality. Usability: 9 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Yes Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Yes Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: MacOS X My Humble Rating: 8 My Humble Comments: Nice software. Like everything made for Macintosh. Unfortunately doesn't work on Windows -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Dynamic Link Promoter URL: http://www.dynamiclinkpromoter.com/ Version: ??? Price: $99.95 Trial: Usability: 8 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Limited Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Limited Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 8 My Humble Comments: Pretty good RLE software but it doesn't worth the money asked.
Name: PR Prowler URL: http://www.prprowler.com/ Version: 3.0 Price: $97 Trial: 20 results for any given query, 100 results total, and 15 days max Usability: 10 Link partners search: Yes Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: No Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: No Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: No Link partners status: No Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 7 My Humble Comments: High-quality software for link partners gathering. But all that it can do can be done manually using a simple browser. Too expensive. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: SEOElite URL: http://www.seoelite.com/ Version: 3.2 Price: $167 Trial: No Usability: 5 Link partners search: Yes Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: Yes Sending personalized emails: Yes Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: No Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: Yes Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: LinksMachine only Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 7 My Humble Comments: Don`t shoot me guys Poor support. Has 7 unrelated between each other modules. Pretty average tool for RLE. Has advanced link popularity statistics feature (like WebLink SEO) though + great advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Link Exchange Manager URL: http://www.acceleratedsoftware.net/linkexchangemanager.html Version: ??? Price: $79.95 Trial: limited to the use of 10 links. Usability: 6 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Limited Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Limited Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 5 My Humble Comments: In spite of the fact that software has already been sold for a long time, it is still buggy Ill-considered user interface. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: SEO Toolkit URL: http://www.trellian.com Version: 1.8 Price: $299.95 Trial: limited functionality Usability: 6 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: Yes Sending personalized emails: No Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: No Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: No Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 5 My Humble Comments: A medley. Trying to do everything anyhow Too expensive
Name: LinkCheck Pro URL: http://www.link-check.net/ Version: ??? Price: $9.95 Trial: fully functional 30 day free trial Usability: 6 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Limited Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Limited Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 5 My Humble Comments: The main value of the software is its price -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Reciprocal Link Checker URL: http://www.rebrandsoftware.com/showsoftware2.asp?soft_id=18 Version: 2.5 Price: $59.95 Trial: fully functional 15 day free trial Usability: 4 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: No Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Limited Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: Yes Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 5 My Humble Comments: I remember times when the software price was $279.99. Nothing interesting except iridescent buttons -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: ALink URL: http://www.info-pack.com/alink/ Version: 2.0.4 Price: $29.95 Trial: Free edition is available Usability: 6 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Limited Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: Yes Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: No Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 5 My Humble Comments: Tiny software Nice toy. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Links Assistant URL: http://www.x3msoftware.com/links-assistant.htm Version: 1.00 Price: Free Trial: Free Usability: 9 Link partners search: No Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Yes Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: No Categories support: Plain Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: No Link partners status: Limited Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: 4 My Humble Comments: I have only one word - Freeware. I am not even sure if it better than excel -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Reciprocal Link Manager URL: http://www.rankexec.com Version: 1.8 Price: $39.95 Trial: 21 day Usability: 5 Link partners search: Limited Google PR & link popularity check: No Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: Yes Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: No Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: Yes Link partners status: Limited Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: No Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: N/A My Humble Comments: Seems like it was painted by Pablo Picasso. "Abstract art" in action: many buttons and pictures, but makes no sence to me. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Link Survey URL: http://www.antssoft.com/linksurvey/ Version: 1.4 Price: $49.95 Trial: 20 results for any given query, 100 results total, and 15 days max Usability: 5 Link partners search: Limited Google PR & link popularity check: Yes Your website's popularity check: No Sending personalized emails: No Receiving and organizing emails: No Links Pages generation: No Categories support: No Full links pages customization: No Link partners back links check: No Link partners status: No Updating multiple link partners: No Built-in browser: Yes Finding and Autocompleting link submission forms: No Platform: Windows My Humble Rating: N/A My Humble Comments: Do you know what it does? Looking for already existing partners? Please let me know as I am confused 8\
My Humble Conclusion: In spite of the fact that SEO market seems to be already filled with various SEO Tools, SEO Software companies continuously try to make us happy with theirs new products. Since I was analyzing the software for Reciprocal Link Exchange, I’ve found two relatively new software products (LinkAssistant and WebLimk SEO) which seem to be much more powerful that the older ones. They first one provides a very professional environment for Reciprocal Link Exchange. The second one is a bit less usable, but offes some useful extra features for search engine optimization. As far as I can understand, we should wait for the battle between these (yet small) monsters. And I know for sure who’s gonna win the fight - it’s the SEO community. Because I hope that their competition will make these both software products even more powerful and less expensive Thanks to all who was able to fully read this review and good luck in your optimization!
Kudos, APECTAHT! Cool review... I've never thought that there are so many link exchange tools on the market... Though I can't agree with some of your ratings given, I'm hapy to learn about WebLinkPro - yet another tool for Mac... Anyway, great job! I've got nothing to add to your review
First great job, thank you for your research. Then a guestion. Do you know dose any of this tool support PHP database on website to save links in or they all create only HTML pages?
As I told above the only Desktop Application was reviewed in this topic. And all of them (if this feature is supported by application) creates ".html" files which you need to upload manually to ftp. This the drawback of Desktop Applications but they have a lot benefits in comparison with WebBased (PHP) applications. I am gooing to review them in next topic and would like to make a little comparison between WebBased and Desktop Applications. Keep an eye on this forum
Wow, I wish I had read your report before buying SEO Elite. The main difference I see that link-assistant has over seo elite is the 3 different link exchanges autocomplete it supports over just 1. -RonMo
I don’t wanna start a holy war, but... in my opinion SEO Elite is not intended for reciprocal link exchange. I’ll try to argue: Unfortunately potential customers can’t try this software before the buy (Why?). But you can take a look over the flash movies on the software’s homepage. First of them is keyword analysis. The result can be very useful if you’d like to analyze your or your competitor’s site. But it requires a very good internet connection or you can start analysis at the evening and go to the bed. With the hope that the task will be done until you sleep. The very similar analysis module has WebLink SEO which costs a half of the SEO Elite. After I’ve seen the movie I said: "Hm... pretty good. I have to see next movie." The next movie shows you how to find and email to your link partners. It the main purpose of a RLE software. Well, SEO Elite can search by competitor, keyword, already linked (like LinkAssistant, WebLink SEO, and ARELIS). Status. After the search you can set status to your link partner (not editable set of statuses, that means you can’t add "Dude is seek and asked me to contact hime letter" status if you’d like). Category. You can set category for link partners (one by one). So, if you’ve found 100 partners you need to make 100 clicks for category + 100 clicks for subcategory. The categories are plain (not a tree like LinkAssistant, WebLink SEO). That means you can’t make Internet -> Marketing -> SEO -> Companies -> Software -> Affiliates -> ... -> ... -> Web -> Code (markup): but only Internet -> SEO Companies -> SEO Software -> Affiliates -> Code (markup): Mail. After that you can send emails. No cavils. Very ordinary. Links Pages. Now is the time to generate your links pages. It’s made very easy. Your need to edit your website template. Remove the body. Leave header and footer only and insert between them the #table# text. The #table# variable will be replaced by the HTML code which you can’t change. And one more thing... As far as I know the SEO Elite inserts link to SEO Elite homepage without fail. But who cares about one extra link Managing Link Partners. Don’t ask me guys what you must do if you’d like to add or remove a link partner to your project or merge it with some other search (for another keyword or competitor) because I don’t know that. Or you have another way. Ask Brad about it. But be sure you’ll get no compos respond until you buy the software. And even after you buy, the support team has only two email templates "No. It is not possible." and "See the forum." Scaning Link Partners` If They Are Still Linking Back Ooh! It`s easy. Enter the URL of your links page (if your have 10 pages you have to make 10 it ten times). The software will take all the URLs from your page and will check them if they still link to you. Otherwise (AFAIK) it will scan whole partners site. But there is one big drawback here - link to your partner on your link page MUST contain full url (www.somesite.com/resources-computer.html) to the page where back link to you is placed. And almost all link partners ask you to place link to theirs homepage (www.somesite.com). Another drawback is that it scans ALL urls on the page including Google AdSense etc. Wanna scan only part of your partners (e.g. just added) - forget it. At least while you are a SEO Elite user Marketing. Bred Callen is the genius of Marketing. A believe he can sell a snow in the Alaska. Let take a look what he is added as bonuses: - Free lifetime software upgrades (A $499.95 value.) Actually upgrade costs about 30-70% of a software price. So one upgrade will cost you about $50-$126. So for $499.95 you can upgrade your software 5 times. Taking into account that SEO Elite is bening updated twice a year you can receive upgrades for 2.5 years. Sounds good, right? But in my opinion free upgrades detracts the developer’s incentive to make new more powerful version. They think "why do I have to make a new version if nobody will pay for that"? Anyway, a lot of RLE software offers lifetime free upgrade but nobody says it costs $500. - Aaron Wall's SEO Elite Power Guide (A $39+ value). Aaron Wall's is very respectable SEO Expert. I hope he wrote an excellent manual for SEO Elite. But selling software manual separately... - I see this for the first time in my life. - This is a mystery bonus that I'm going to be absolutely thrilled with! Are you thrilled? Me too. I hope it is a pink Cadillac - On top of all that, I also get access to the exclusive, members only SEO Elite forum. I can get you access too. Not so exclusive but http://www.seoelite.com/chat/ You can read, write new posts without a buying a SEO Elite. I am apologize one more time. As I said I don’t wanna start holly war. But I’d like to uncover some interesting facts about the SEO Elite software. Good luck!
I need a simple tool where I can input a bunch of urls, as many as possible(links pages supposedly containing my link) which will supply me with just two results, a yes or no (whether my link is still up) and the PR of the page. Any ideas? Thank you Maria
Not necessarily, if it will deliver what I need For example I checked with http://www.recip-links.com/ but out of the (only) 10 urls that I input, 5 were "non-recips" according to the tool. Well, no, when I checked manually ALL ten still had my link on their pages. So I gathered it should not be a particularly valuable tool?
I'm not sure... If to choose among those mentioned by APECTAHT, seems like Reciprocal Link Checker might meet your needs. But as far as I know, most tools provide much more functionality than you need... You may take a look at, say, LinkAssistant or Areles, but they provide much more features and may be a bit expensive for what you need, I suppose
Generally http://www.recip-links.com/ seems like the tool you need. Perhaps it does`nt show you the links protected from search engine crawling. Your link partner can cheat you using JavaScript, robots.txt, rel="nofollow", frames or some other cheating technique. Please, let me know via PM you site URL and pages you are trying to check. I`ll try to check it manually if they are cheating you.