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Review - LinkMachine Reciprocal Link Management Software

Inside look at a reciprocal link management tool for building and maintaining your link directory—will it give you the boost that you need?

LinkMachine is a reciprocal link exchange management software that makes it easy to find and contact quality link partners, generate custom link pages that match your site, and keep track of reciprocal links.

I won't put you on; I've grown increasingly distrustful of reciprocal linking over my years of web marketing, as more and more people have gotten into indiscriminate reciprocal linking for the sake of trying to fool the search engines into thinking that their site is more popular than it really deserves to be.

But there's no denying the importance of getting links coming into your site, both for the sake of traffic it can bring when done intelligently and for the sake of the boost it can give your search engine rankings.

I like LinkMachine because I've found it to be one of the simplest ways to manage your link directory. It updates your link pages automatically the instant you change them - no uploading is required.

Easy-to-use interface

I like LinkMachine particularly for its easy-to-use interface. The layout is so simple that you can get a pretty good idea even at first glance of how to use it. Check it out for yourself in the screenshot below.

Quick learning time

If you're just starting your link directory, it offers you an easy learning curve. You can have LinkMachine configured for a brand new link directory in less than two hours.

If you're moving an existing link directory into LinkMachine, it gives you multiple ways of transferring your information into LinkMachine. You can have it read your existing link directory pages and create the listings. Or, if you store your link partner information in a database or spreadsheet, you can create a comma-delimited file to feed your data directly into LinkMachine.

Personal note—Whatever way you choose to transfer data into LinkMachine (or whenever you transfer data from one source to another), make sure you double-check that all data was transferred properly.

Ways to add link partners

LinkMachine provides seven ways to add new link partners to your link directory, including an exciting option to add InstantLinks. InstantLinks enable you to exchange links instantly with other LinkMachine owners, without the formality of e-mail requests.

InstantLinks

Select the Add Partners by InstantLinks option and LinkMachine will search its master database of other LinkMachine owners and give you a list of other sites that have chosen the same categories to describe their sites as you have chosen.

Review the list, decide which ones you want to link with, choose the category you want to appear in in their directory and where they best fit into your, click a button and the InstantLink takes effect.

Depending on the preferences you and your desired link partners have set, the links on the two sites either appear instantly, or after your potential link partner has had a chance to approve the link. But everything happens automatically.

Automatic search for link partners

You can also have LinkMachine search the search engines for potential link partners, but I found this option to be more time-consuming and less productive than I would have liked. This feature definitely needed more work when I last tried it.

Weaknesses and strengths

I've found the InstantLink option to be a good way of finding reciprocal link partners, but the other automated methods for finding link partners were not LinkMachine's greatest strength. Its strength is in its quick learning curve to set up and ease of use for managing your link directory.

And its built in form allows you to add those potential link partners who fill out the form with utter ease. With a single click, you can accept their link exchange request, which instantly adds them to your link directory and informs them of your acceptance of their request. You can't get much easier than that!

Free or paid versions available

LinkMachine is available in a free version or in a paid version, but it gives you one week's free trial of the additional options in the paid version, which include the InstantLink option and all of the other options for finding link partners, as well as the ability to use LinkMachine on more than one site.

If you're looking for a quick to learn and easy to use link management tool and aren't planning to commit a huge amount of time to your link directory, LinkMachine is the tool for you.

Rating: Free version 5/10
Paid version 9/10

Click here to find out how to put LinkMachine to work for you

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