Well, I must say it’s nice to finally be able to write a postive review of a product/service. I first heard about deep linker pro maybe 3 months ago or more. I actually had it on my list of things to do literally for at least 2 months, then I bought it a couple weeks ago and it took me up until yesterday to actually start using it. Anyway, I’m really liking it so far.

Basically Deep Linker Pro is a tool that will do automatic directory submissions for you, and also allows you to do automatic submissions to deep link directories as well. A deep link directory is one that will let you link to inner pages of your site. This is beneficial for obvious reasons.

Personally, I really don’t think directory submissions are going to make or break your SEO campaign for a given site, but I have been using them on a great deal of my own sites for probably at least 5 years now, and I still keep using them. One of the reasons I think it helps is just simply to diversify your link profile. In my opinion, I think  it probably looks good to the search engines to drip in a ton of these directory links over the course of 6 months or so, and obviously it never hurts to up your overall incoming link count. So anyway, the specific benefit of directory links is debatable, but I like them and I use them and I personally think it helps to be as diverse as possible, if nothing else.

So getting to the reasons why I like it:

DLP is incredibly easy to use.

There is literally 1 screen you need to enter data in about your project, 8 total fields. This means for someone like me who literally has hundreds of sites to use, it won’t take me all day to get them added into the system. Basically all you do is fill in your title, description, keywords, URL, Reciprocal Link URL and choose a category, then start the submissions. It’s as easy as that.

It’s Fast

In addition to being quick to set up, the actuall submission process is pretty fast too – it takes me a couple hours to submit one project to about 400 directories automatically.

Manual Submission and Deep Linking Available

The deep linking is a nice touch, as you can submit multiple pages of your sites to deep link directories to get a lot more links and help keep your interior pages indexed. They also have about 200 – 300 directories that require captcha that you can manually submit to, and it doesn’t take very long to do.

Free Lifetime Updates

The good news is this tool is pretty early on in it’s lifespan and I think it’s going to be getting a lot better. With just a one-time fee, you get free lifetime updates, which I really like because I think there is a ton of potential here, and I hear that version 2 is supposed to be coming out very soon with a lot of new updates.

The Price is Right

DLP only costs $67. As far as I’m concerned it is an amazing price if you actually consider how many links you will gain from having this tool around. Now again, these aren’t the greatest links in the world, but a quick 400 links drip fed into every website you ever own ain’t too shabby for a one-time fee of $67. To put it into perspective, I used to actually pay an Indian company to do my directory submissions manually, and I believe I paid somewhere between $50 – $100 for around 1000 links – and I liked this service a lot and used it many times.

That’s basically the pro’s – I will say that it’s not perfect and there are definitely some things that could be improved:

Limited Amount of Directories

From what I understand there is a very small number of deep link directories supported right now, and the number of automatic directories is around 400. Overall, I think there is a lot of room for improvement here, and I already know that this is going to be a big part of version 2. I’m still happy with the current number, but the potential for more directories is huge and obviously increases the value of the tool a lot.

No Decaptcher Support

I was really hoping this would have decaptcher support for the additional 200 or so directories that require captcha, as it would be a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned.  I actually emailed their support about this exact thing over a month ago and never heard anything back. I’m really hoping that they figure out some way to get this integrated into the mix.

Proxy Support, Multiple Submissions

I’m not entirely sure if supporting proxies is even necessary for something like this, but I already use proxies for BMD, so I would easily be able to plug them in here as well if it were supported. Also, I think this might tie in to multiple submissions – I would love to be able to run submissions for say 5 different URLs at one time. Again, I don’t know about this logistically, but it could be nice.

Reporting

Sadly the reporting doesn’t seem great at all. Again, this is something where I don’t know if it would even be possible to do much in this area, but it would be so great if I could get a report of the directories that I submit to – and even better if it could track submissions, and most of all give me a report of the actual URL where my link is whenever applicable. Again I don’t know if this would be possible, but it would be extremely powerful.

Automatic Email Activation

There is a percentage of the sites that need to have your submission activated via an email confirmation link. It really hasn’t been a big deal for me to click the links, but it would be a big timesaver. This is a feature they have in BMD and it is really nice, although not really necessary in this case.

Conclusion

So yeah, overall, I think if you are doing SEO on any level this tool is really a no brainer. It’s extremely powerful and the price can’t be beat. I really hope Josh keeps working on this tool because I really like it a lot so far and I think there’s a ton of potential for improvement. I haven’t been using it for very long, so I can’t really speak to the long term results from this, but the way I see it, it’s just another nice tool to have in the arsenal and it doesn’t take a long time to learn like BMD does.

So one of the things I’ve really been working on lately is finding some kind of tool that will track my keywords’ rankings for my various websites. At the moment I have over 100 websites I would like to be able to track rankings on and doing it manually simply isn’t an option at this point. I know that Market Samurai has this feature, however the word on the street is that the results aren’t very accurate. I’ve had SEO Power Suite in my mind for quite a while after it was reviewed on one of the few IM blogs I read regularly – this was probably at least 6 months ago. For anyone who isn’t familiar with SEO Power Suite, it is a set of tools that inclue a rank checker, on page optimization tool, competitive analysis tool and link exchange tool.  I personally don’t feel that I have much need for any of the tools other than the rank checker, but I have heard some really great things about it and it sounds like it’s very accurate. The rest of the tools I can take or leave. I don’t think the link assistant is something I would use at all, and about the only thing I would use the other tools for would be for generating fancy reports to include in quotes for potential SEO clients.

So you can buy the indvidual tools, or you can buy the whole package. You also have to choose between the Pro and Enterprise editions. I was literally seconds away from buying the full Enterprise package for around $600, but changed my mind at the last minute. Here are the main reasons:

1. I couldn’t really figure out if I needed the PRO  or Enterprise version. They have a nice chart detailing the differences between the two packages, but I couldn’t exactly tell what those differences were based on the descriptions. For example, I know it is possible to generate reports in the PRO version, but I don’t know if it is possible to somehow take those reports out of SEO Power Suite. I could see that a lot of the Enterprise features dealt with exporting reports and similar things, but I just couldn’t tell for sure. I wouldn’t want to buy the PRO version and find out that it doesn’t do what I need, and I wouldn’t want to pay double for the Enterprise version and find out that I really don’t need the extra features at all. I could have just asked support, but that brings me to my second point.

2. They don’t make it easy to email support. Of course, they don’t have a nice easy support email listed on their site – they have a ticketing system, which you have to register for to be able to get in touch with support.  I don’t know about you, but I really hate it when I can’t find a support email address, and I especially don’t like having to go through a convoluted ticketing system just to ask a sales question. To me, that’s just crazy. I can 100% guarantee that if they would have provided a sales/support email address, I would have contacted them and likely ended up buying the product.

3. SEO Power Suite has hidden fees attached. One of the things I found out at the last minute that was really the nail in the coffin on this deal for me was the fact that they actually charge an ongoing fee to keep RankTracker data updated, and possibly for the other tools as well. It isn’t for software updates – it has to do with them keeping up with search engines to provide accurate data with the tool. Which is fine. But it is VERY hard to find this information on their site. I found out about it after reading someone’s comment about it in a review I was looking at. From what it sounds like, you have to pay some kind of subscription fee and if you don’t, the software ultimately will become useless.  So basically what they’re doing here is getting you to buy a very expensive software package without really telling you that you’re going to have to continue paying to keep it working. Not only that, but I spent about 30 minutes trying to find information on what the fees actually are on their website and funny, I still can’t tell you what they are or what they apply to. They DO have a page buried on their site that vaguely describes the fees, but there are no specifics at all.  So that one really sealed the deal for me.

Overall, I really wanted to like this product, and I was sincerely planning to buy it. Unfortunately the fact that they are difficult to contact coupled with the fact that they obviously are not trying to be open about the ongoing fees is just too much for me to get over.

Sadly I really don’t have a lot of other great ideas as far as tools to use for tracking rankings across a large number of websites, so if anyone else has any ideas, I’m all ears.

The Google Sandbox…

This is a topic that has been covered widely across the Internet on various MMO, Internet marketing and SEO sites, yet there is still a great deal of confusion over exactly what being “sandboxed” means, how to tell if your site is in the sandbox, and the differences between being deindexed, being penalized and being sandboxed. As this is an issue that I personally have dealt with on all 3 levels, I’m going to try to clarify the differences between the 3.

What is the Google Sandbox?

The sandbox is a system Google implemented in order to cut down on spam. It specifically targets sites on brand new domains. Often, when you deploy a new website – specifically for a niche with little competition, Google will give you a very high ranking as soon as you’ve been indexed. This is the honeymoon period, and more of a preview of things to come than an actual reality. After a week or two, in many cases you will go from a first page ranking for your keyword to being completely out of the rankings altogether. Generally, this is the point where you’ve been sandboxed. This is a period of time, which can last as long as 6-8 months, where you will not rank in Google for your keywords.  This doesn’t mean you won’t receive ANY Google search traffic, but you’ll likely rank mostly for very long tail searches and receive very little traffic daily. Google does this to give themselves an evaluation period. Spammers are inclined to set a site and forget it, where actual legitimate business are more likely to continue adding content to their site and building links. This helps Google separate the good from the bad. Once you’re released from the sandbox, you’ll likely enjoy very nice rankings for your keyword, depending on the level of competition.

What is a Google Penalty?

A Google penalty is a lot different than being sandboxed. A big difference – a penalty can be applied to a site of any age, not just new sites. In fact, I would wager to guess that penalties are probably more often applied to older sites. A penalty won’t completely remove you from the Google SERPS, instead, it will knock you back about 50 places or more, depending on the severity. Penalties are usually applied because of improper linking, or content issues.

What is a Google Ban?

Being banned from Google is the worst case scenario, and also probably the most difficult to recover from. A Google ban, or being deindexed by Google, means that you’re site has been completely removed from their index altogether. This can happen for a variety of reasons – but the root cause, in general, is that Google thinks your site is spam. You can go from hundreds of thousands of visits daily to 0 visits literally overnight. The only way to get back into Google’s index after you’ve been banned is to request a manual inspection of your site. Most likely if Google banned your site in the first place, it’s going to be pretty tough to pass a manual inspection… But it is possible.

How to Tell Whether Your Site is Sanboxed or Banned

This is where it can get a little confusing. If your site is sandboxed it is quite easy for it to feel like a ban, because you may literally be bringing in no search traffic at all, and be ranking for nothing. The easiest way to tell is by checking to see if your site is indexed with google. The very easiest way is to type www.yoursite.com into a Google search. If it is indexed, it should almost always be the #1 result. The most proper way to tell is actually to use the site: operator. So go to Google and type site:www.yoursite.com. This should return the total number of pages your site has indexed in Google – which if you’ve built a structurally sound site, should be close to the total # of pages in your site. If a site:www.yoursite.com search returns no results, this probably means you’ve been banned, as that would mean you literally have 0 pages indexed with Google. The only time this would not be the case would be if your site was still too new to be indexed by Google, however these days new sites can get discovered and indexed very quickly so this is most often not the case.

What to do if Your Site Has Been Sandboxed by Google

Unfortunately there is no concrete solution to getting out of the sandbox. The main things Google wants to evaluate from a site in the sandbox is whether they continue to build incoming links, and add quality content. So the most obvious solution to getting out of the sandbox is to give Google what they want – naturally continue to build links to your site, and try to add as much fresh content as possible. Doing this will almost always ensure that you WILL come out of the sandbox at some point, but still won’t guarantee it will happen in less than 6-8 months.

The best possible thing you can do is plan ahead. Put up a new domain with a page or two of unique content months before you actually build a site. This will give it time to age, and most of the time will help you completely avoid being sandboxed. Also, if the actual domain name isn’t extremely important, consider buying an existing domain name or site to use. Just be sure it hasn’t been penalized or banned. Buying pre-owned domains is a great way to hit the ground running with a new website.