When generating doorwaypages, is it better to look at the top averages for that SE, or top averages of the top pages for the category you are trying to do well in?

Do pages that are cloaked or bait-and-switched look the same to the page critic? Does Webposition notice this or pretend it doesn't exist?

Anything about this appreciated....
Thanks

WebPositionGold is one of the best programs on the market - maybe the best - but still just a program. You will hear many people on the forums like me telling you that NO program can give you great rankings. They can help you analize and stuff but you need to do a lot of the work by hand and learn about each individual search engine to achieve perfect rankings.

The good news is that you came to the right place if you want to learn everything.

You should start by setting the prefs to see all threads 1 year back - and then start reading up. there is a lot of stuff to read, I know, but I promise you its worth it.

On the way start posting questions about the things you dont understand. There are NO stupid questions. Just ask but try to be pricise. Questions like: "How do I get great rankings..." wont get you anyware.

To answer part of your question;
"Do pages that are cloaked or bait-and-switched look the same to the page critic? Does Webposition notice this or pretend it doesn't exist?"

The page critic has no idea whether the pages are cloaked or have been switched. Unfortunately this means that you can't pay too much attention to either the top averages for that SE (because those results are probably skewed by cloaked pages, bait & switch, outright deletion of metas, etc..

Whether looking at the averages of top pages will be useful depends on how competitive that keyword category is, because cloaking, bait & switch, etc. are even more prevelant here.

The page critic is most useful to get your own pages' keyword densities and adjust them based on what you learn here and elsewhere. If you do get lucky and find a page that isn't cloaked or altered after submission then that's a bonus.

[This message has been edited by Air (edited 08-20-1999).]

We use WPGold and it is a great program. I'm not sure from your post whether you are using WP Gold to create doorway pages for you. I would not recommend WPGold for that. It is great to track your SE positions, it does a fair job with its Page Critic module, but you can create much better doorways by hand than any program.

[This message has been edited by mnw (edited 08-20-1999).]

It took a solid two weeks of heavy daily use just to get moderatly proficient with it. Two, about 500% over priced. Three, crashed three times on me while trying to do the same thing (reproduceable). Four, the user interface leaves so much to be desired - the explantion of how the system works is very confusing and getting started was a huge learning curve.

I think you are better off with a set of utils like Jimbo's tools down there and a host of other online utils like website garage for validation and compatibility.

I know I'm not the typical user, but even after purchasing, it has been deleted off the hard drive.

We've yet to see the difinative search engine promotion utility.

The only thing that I find usefull in webposition is the traffic analyser.

[This message has been edited by lissimore (edited 08-23-1999).]

[This message has been edited by lissimore (edited 08-24-1999).]

The keyword tools are getting a lot of use and I'd like to see how far we can take them in features.

If it matters to you, here is what I'm seeing in Opera from jt...Its a full screen shot.
jimtools opera screen shot

There is a small issue with text over writting the black portion on the right. I looked at the frame source and didn't see what could be changed to correct it. Most issues like that with Opera are around table widths (Opera uses a different algo to determine the width of a table than ie or netscape).

Brett

[This message has been edited by Brett_Tabke (edited 08-25-1999).]

I am curious about updates. Obviously the search engines are evolving so WPG would also require to keep up as well. Once you buy the program, are the updates going to be free or do thay start to charge after an alloted time frame etc?

Most shareware I have used make the updates free to registered users etc...

Can anyone shed some light on this for me please?

I think it's 90 days updates, then it costs for another 90 - the program seems to update itself quite frequently.

quote:

---

I think it's 90 days updates, then it costs for another 90 - the program seems to update itself quite frequently.

---

Actually - I found the faq on wpg's site - wow is that unclear

they state the following:

quote:

---

Maintenance updates are free for the lifetime of the program. This includes bug fixes, minor enhancements, and revisions to maintain compatibility with the search engines as they change their output formats. WebPosition has an auto-update feature to inform you of any new updates when they become available.

---

then right after this, they state this:

quote:

---

However, over time the search engines will change the rules that they use to rank pages without warning. The research staff at FirstPlace Software spends many hours continually watching for these changes, and then updates WebPosition's Page Generator and Page Critic Knowledge Bases as needed. These updates can be downloaded and installed to your machine automatically.

However, to ensure the Page Critic continues to offer the best advice, and the Page Generator creates the most up to date pages, we've made several low cost update service options available. That way you don't have to worry about staying on top of the latest changes with each of the search engines. We'll do it for you!

The first 90 days of knowledge base updates are absolutely FREE with your purchase of WebPosition. For updates after that time, you'll want to purchase an update plan.

---

So they state that updates are free as the software requires and search engines change, and that only major revisions (ie going from version 4.5 to version 5 etcc..) will be charged for an update.

Imeadiatly afterward they turn around in the very next paragraph and state that the updates are free for 90 days for the very same content, afterward you pay.

Ok, here is my position. I would like to purchase, at $149.00 - however updates should be free for at least 1 year, not just 90 days! They charge the following for their updates!
$49 for additional 3 months of updates
$79 for additional 6 months of updates
$99 for additional 12 months (Best Value!)

Cripes! That is like buying a car for $18,000 and then having to pay $5900.00 for an oil and lube job 6 months later!!

For my small little site - I dont mind $149.00 for a piece of software - but
I want a reasonable life expectancy for that software. I do not want it to be useless to me in 90 days without buying an update for %30.00 of the origional price.

I Bought Microsoft Office 97 - I still use it 2 years later! I will be purchasing Office 2000 soon because of some of the new features....

[This message has been edited by DruCook (edited 09-20-1999).]

So, my advice would be to purchase WPG, forgo the Page Critic updates and heavily read the advice in the forums.

Best of luck to you...

How does WPG analyzer work? Does it analyze site logs? Will it track keyword phrases and referring sites (ie, search engines)?

The page generator is a good start, but it spits out almost the exact same page for every engine..definetly kind of weak...

The traffic analyzer work pretty good, I like the way it can insert the code into ALL the pages on a site automatically, saving you the time of doing it manually for every seperate page.
The analyzer doesn't seem to be showing ALL the search engines that hit my site, only infoseek. I also am using the superstats.com traffic analyzer, that's how I know other SE's are giving me hits, maybe its a problem on my side...

I used the page critic on my doorway pages for AltaVista and infoseek, haven't had time to target the other engines,got a few #1 positions right away!!!!(not the MOST competitive keywords, but popular!!!!)
Dfinite jump in hits.....

I use submitWolf v4.0 from http://submitwolf.com/

it has over 1500 se and 2200 link-lists.. and u can track results on 13 different se..

it is easy to use and fast at submitting...

hands down is better than WPG AND pages i have listed with it have been returning Top10 consistently....

might have to do with my metas tho...

check it out and tell me if any tweaking is needed... www.automall.st

thanks all

[This message has been edited by Janet Berg (edited 12-02-1999).]

quote:

---

From Jim;
If anyone has any good suggestions for the JimTools, I'm (almost) all ears.

---

Jim;

You list on your site a section for web software reviews. http://jimworld.com/reviews/index.html

You have SubmitWolf Pro listed there, how about getting First place Software to provide a copy of Webposition gold for review?

Also - who wrote the review for Submitwolf Pro? It gives more relevance to the review if we know who wrote it. (also the author for Sharit review)

---------

On a side note - Submit wolf pro can submit to a large number of engines - which is benificial as long as you do the top 10-15 engines by hand. I am curious about Web Position gold - how many engines does WPG post to (I could not find that information on thier site or in the demo of WPG) - I fear that would buy WPG to find it submits only to the top 20 search engines - the ones I want to do by hand anyway -

and my returns in the se's has been excellent....

from what comments i've seen about WPG there are more ppl out there that can't stand it...

and yet, submitWolf has no detractors as of yet.....