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| A brief overview of Sharp Link Manager |
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Sharp Link Manager is FREE software that makes keeping your
links page up to date easy. Unlike the bigger link directory
solutions, Sharp Link Manager is targeted towards small websites
with simple needs. It has the following features:
- Writes a links page based on the links you create
- Allows you to create multiple pages to organize
your links
- Allows you to search for sites that are willing to link
to yours
- Makes it easy to separate your links into more then one links page
- Allows you to create three different types of links
- Link to another site only
- Link Exchange
- Link to your site only
- Lets you check to make sure a site links back to yours
- Gives you the option of not showing a link (if for instance they don't have a link to you)
- Lets you search their site to find a link to yours
- Lets you send custom emails to their website to inquire
about your link
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| How do I signup for an account? |
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To signup for an account click here.
You will be asked to supply a username and password so you
can login. You will also be asked for a contact name, company
and email address. You should make sure these details are
correct as they will be included at the bottom of every
email you send with Sharp Link Manager.
You also need to enter the URL of the website that you want
to use this service for. This string will be what Sharp Link
Manager searches for to find links to your site. It is therefor
more beneficial for you to enter a URL such as yoursite.com
as this will match any link to either www.yoursite.com or
yoursite.com or even www.yoursite.com/mywebpage.html.
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| How do I setup the links page of my website? |
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Once you have created some links it will be time to try the
links out on your site. All you need to do is have a php webpage
and enter the following include where you want the links to
be written:
<? include("http://www.sharpwebservice.com/link_manager/write_links.php?url=".$_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"]."&id=".$_REQUEST['id'])
?>
Then you may want to customize the look of your links page,
well you can edit the look through this style sheet:
Download the blank style sheet
OR
Download the style sheet for this site
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| How do I add a new link directory? |
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Click on the 'add a directory'
link at the top of the Sharp Link Manager webpages. You will
need to enter a title for the directory. The directory will
then appear on the admin
home page where you can select the directory to add links
to it.
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| How do I edit a link directory? |
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| To rename a directory, click the 'Rename'
button next to the directory you want to edit on the admin
home page. |
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| How do I delete a link directory? |
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| From the admin
home page click on the 'Delete' button next to the directory
you want to delete. This can't be undone so make sure you want
to delete the directory. If you delete a directory you will
also delete every link in the directory. You should move all the links you want to keep to another directory before you delete a directory. |
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| What are the three types of links that I can set up? |
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- Link to another site only - A link of this type
will show up on your links page only. You do not expect
the other website to link back to you. You will not be able
to check or search for a link back to you.
- Link Exchange - You have traded links with this
site. You want to have a link to them on your links page.
You also want to make sure that a link to your site is found
on their site. You can do this by using our check,
search and email options.
- Link to your site only - You want to make sure
a website is linking to you. This may be because you paid
for the link or because its an important link to you that
you want keep track of. You can do this by using our check,
search and email options. You don't want a link to them
on your links page. Click the LINKS TO YOUR SITE ONLY link
on the admin home page to manage these links.
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| How do I add a new link? |
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Click on the 'add a link' link at the top of the Sharp Link
Manager webpages. You will need to enter the URL of the link
(this URL will open in a new window from your links page)
and the title of the link (the display text). You can also
add a description of the link. The link will display as follows
on your link page:
link title - link description
You must also select which type of link you want to create
(see above for details). If you select
'Link Exchange' or 'Link to your site only' and you know where
the link to your website is on their website, you should enter
it now to save time searching for it later. You may also want
to enter the email address of the other site so you can use
our email feature.
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| How do I edit a link? |
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| From the admin home page click on the directory where the link is. Then click the 'Edit' button next to
the link you want to edit. Change the link details as desired.
See above for more details on the fields. |
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| How do I delete a link? |
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| From the admin
home page click on the directory where the link is. Then
click the 'Delete' button next to the link you want to delete.
This can't be undone so make sure you want to delete the link.
You may want to hide the link instead if you think you may use
the link in the future (see below) |
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| How do I find sites that will link to me? |
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At the top of the admin home page, use the keyword search.
Just enter a keyword into the field (I’d recommend just one
keyword) and click on the ‘Find’ button. A Google search will
be automatically started for you in a new window. The results
of the Google search should be directories related to your
keyword willing to list your site. Thanks to Tim Flight for this script.
Before you start going through the results, keep the following information regarding your website handy in a blank document ready for copy/paste:
- Title - don't forget relevant keywords
- Full URL
- Your email address
- List of keywords (few will ask for this)
- Description of your site, 250 characters or less
OR download
this list of search engine friendly directories to add your website to.
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| How do I check for reciprocal links? |
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| To save time and resources, when you edit the
links in a directory,
Sharp Link Manager doesn't check if each link to your site exists
(Sharp Link Manager does automatically check the links on the
'new links' page). If you click the 'CHECK LINKS' link at the
top of the link directory, Sharp Link Manager will check each
link's last location and update the link status as needed for
all of the links in that directory. It will not search anywhere
but the webpage you specified the link is on or where it was
last found by Sharp Link Manager. To find your link in a site
when you don't know where it is see How
do I use the 'Search' button below. |
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| How do I use the 'Search' button? |
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From the admin home page click on the directory where the link is. Then click the 'Search' button next
to the link to the website that you want to find your link on.
The search button is only visible if the link is not 'FOUND'.
The search starts at the link's last location or if none was
specified it starts at the link's URL. It then uses PHP
Crawl to search the website until it finds your link or
goes through the entire site or times out. If your link is found
the last link location is updated and link status is set to
'FOUND'.
- Please be patient while your link is located. This system is by no means perfect. It can be slow and sometimes it may not reach the page where your link is found.
- If you are searching for your link on a large site it may take a while. In fact it may even time out before it finishes searching the site.
- If your link is found, the backlink location will automatically be updated.
- If your link isn't found you may want to contact the website in question. Ask them for the webpage where your link is found and edit the link from the admin area.
- If your link isn't found, but you know its there the search may have timed out or maxed out before your link was found. Find the link manually and edit the link from the admin area.
- Limits: time = 5 minutes, webpages = 1000, data = 5 MB - these limits can't be changed
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| How do I approve a link exchange? |
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Click on the 'new links'
link at the top of the Sharp Link Manager webpages. Then click
the 'Approve' button next to the link you want to approve.
Please note that the link status is automatically updated.
Change the link details as desired, especially make sure you
select the appropriate directory (see
above for field details) and click the 'Approve' button.
An email will be sent out to the email address they provided
notifying them. You do not have to accept the details they
provided, you are free to edit any of the fields.
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| How do I deny a link exchange? |
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Click on the 'new links'
link at the top of the Sharp Link Manager webpages. Then click
the 'Deny' button next to the link you want to deny. Please
note that the link the link will be removed from the database.
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| How do I use the 'Email' button? |
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From the admin home
page click on the directory where the link is that you
want to email. OR, click on the 'new
links' link at the top of the Sharp Link Manager webpages
to email a new link. Then click the 'Email' button next to
the link that you want to email. You must enter their email
(if you have entered it previously it will be remembered)
and a subject for the email. You can optionally choose a template
to start the email and then add your own comments at the bottom.
The email will be formatted like this:
Template
Additional Comments
Thank You,
Your Name
Your Company
Your URL
Your email
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| A site isn't linking back to me, what can I do? |
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First make sure you try the search
option to try to find your link. If it still isn't found,
your best option is to send the site in question an email (see
here). There is a possibiltiy that your link exists but
that the search timed out or maxed out before your link was
found. This is common on very large websites. If the webmaster
of the site doesn't respond to your emails, the next action
you can take is to remove their link from your site. This can
be done two ways:
1) delete the link.
2) unselect the checkbox next to the link and click the
'Update' button at the bottom of the link directory. This method
is preferred if you want to possibly add the link back in the
future (ie they link to your site). The link remains in the
database and you can still check the site for your link.
3) if the link is a new link you can simply deny the
link.
You may want to continue emailing to try to get your link back or give up at this point.
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| How do I edit my account? |
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| Click the 'My Account' link on the top right of the Sharp
Link Manager webpages. This will allow you to edit all your
details except your username. Please note that if you decide
to change the URL of your site, then your link page will no
longer work on the original site. Sharp Link Manager will also
look for links to this new URL now. For more details see How
do I signup for an account above. |
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