The 'time' factor must be weighed before assuming you're wasting time. Let's say the software saves you three hours of time by doing all the directory submission for you. Time is money right? Maybe...... If you're adding links to ALL your directories for a single site, and three sites every day, then yes.... it can be a valuable tool. However, keep in mind that tools like this pretty much leave you with using the same anchor text, and following text, for every single site. This could get a large chunk of your links devalued if G see's you got the exact same text everywhere around the web. Money wasted. Plus, we should mention that some directory owners really hate spam tools like this (i say spam cause you pretty much 'fire it and forget', never visiting their site). And many directory owners go out of their way to put up security measures to fight off software like this. And if your software tool isn't effective anymore, then again.... Money wasted. But what if you're just doing some sites that you own personally. Takes a lot of work building sites, so unless you're using automated programs, you would probably only use your software once a month... maybe twice. In this case, you're much better off saving your money, not just because of the reasons above, but because your time allocated for the links is extremely little compared to the whole.... almost non-existent. Money wasted. And last but not least, I'm a victim of the whole Brad Callen marketing system myself. When I very first got into web development (really long story with that one), I didn't know a damn thing. The SEO Elite got 'dropped' in front of me and I really thought that using a tool like that would help a ton. However, later on I realized (learned the hard way), that SE ranking is pretty complex, and always evolving. A static tool simply cannot keep up with the algo's, even with trying to supply updates. This tool can do a few neat things, but it certainly can't physically tell you any severely important information thats going to bust the bank wide open. And last but not least, I fell for the SEO Elites key marketing line.... "Run these tools, get the information, and do exactly what you're competitors have done." The key word there is "exactly". It's physically impossible to do 'exactly' what your competitors have done, no matter what market you're in. First of all, you can't name your pages 'exactly' like your competitors otherwise you're going to throw up some flags for google, and everyone else, not to mention the on-page content. Second, you can't get the 'exact' same links as your competitors because part of the ranking algo's is 'link age'. So unless you can turn back time, you can never do 'exactly' what your competitors have done. i.e. - If you don't beat you're competitors in the serps, and complain to Brad Callen about it, he can use the 'You didn't do EXACTLY what they did', excuse. In the end, I still use it, but ONLY to check rankings across several websites for several keywords on the big three SE's. $169 to check my rankings.....
The main use I saw for the program was to check rankings, check the people were still linking back, and getting a list of possible link partners. This is the time consuming part of the project for me. I intended to manually email people after reviewing a site to see that it was relevant / possible source of traffic. The time saved from typing link:www.example.com is more along the lines of what I ment in my previous statement. After seeing all of these comments, though, I am starting to consider NOT buying this program. Does anyone have any suggestions for a program that would help with the above issues? EDIT: This is off topic, but what is the code to prevent a url from showing up as a link?