Microsys Blog

The Famed “Penguin” Google Algorithm Update

admin — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:05:42 +0000

Recently, in-between two Google “Panda” updates (19th April and 27th April) Google decided to make a major change in their algorithm for ranking pages. Backlinks can now outright hurt your rankings in various ways (the details are still being discussed) possibly opening up for negative SEO in a big way.

Two things appear to be the culprit of penalized websites:

Backlink anchor text not being diversified. While that may seem problematic for domains/brands spelled out as a key phrase, it seems to non-the-less be the truth. This also means many EMD (exact match domains) with just a little SEO’ed link building (either by yourself, hired company or at worst, by a competitor doing negative SEO) were hit hard. You might want to check your website logs if you haven’t already
Backlinks from pages/sites not containing on-topic content. If a link contains anchor text “blue widgets” the surrounding page and maybe even the whole site has to fit that topic as well.

Here’s an article about in-depth backlink analysis of penalized domains and one about how a no-content site with a suspicious backlink profile is now able to rank #1 in Google.

Our support forum (I will still use relevant anchor text, Google or no Google, thank you very much, just call me a rebel) has some active threads running about this topic, among others this where I will also be posting future analysis if I ever make heads and tails out of this mess

Suffice to say, I think the change is here to stay. Maybe some sites will make a small recovery, but I personally feel one has to accept what has happened and look into possible solutions. One thing you will always hear iterated over and over: You should always get more streams of income. While not depending Google for relevant traffic may be harder done than said, it is probably the only long-term strategy forward from here.

Microsys Newsletter #3, 4th April 2012

admin — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:39:20 +0000

Spring and Product News
Spring and 64bit versions available of most Microsys software

Spring Is Here and So Is 64bit Software Versions
Early in March all “A1″ products got 64bit versions. Later followed the rest of our most popular software products with the only exceptions being Ajour and Corner. If you are still using 32bit computer hardware, there is no need to worry though. The installers now include both 32bit and 64bit executables and can pick which one to install. Check our products and services page to download new versions of all our software.

Free and Discounted 4.x Upgrades
Since this is a common point of confusion, please remember that as an existing customer you are either eligible to free upgrades or discounted upgrades. What determines this most often depends is time of purchase. All “A1″ products have changed version numbers to 4.x (currently at version 4.0.2) meaning you will need to upgrade if you wish to use the new 4.x versions. On top of each product page, you can find a link called “Upgrade to 4.x”. This page contains information on how to retrieve your 4.x free or discounted upgrades. If you want to download an old 3.x release, you can find a link on the upgrade page called “old versions”.

Other Improvements Beyond 64bit in A1 Tools
All software is developed on a regular basis with improvements and fixes. From 4.0.0 to 4.0.2 this included e.g. better image and video sitemaps in A1 Sitemap Generator and better search engine index details in A1 Website Search Engine. With either free or heavily discounted upgrades this proposition is hopefully enticing to you, the reader, as well Should there be a feature you miss in any of our products, you are always welcome to contact us with feedback.

Follow or Like Us Using Social Media
If you like our tools, please let other people know! Our software and website pages include a small “Like and share” link which will take you to a page where you can recommend our product(s) to other people in your social circles. You can also click here to like Microsys tools and/or follow us on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter

Download All Pictures or Documents from Websites

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:12:17 +0000

Actually, the title of this blog post is slightly misleading. It does not matter what type of file you want to download from a website: PDF manuals, image galleries or instruction videos, you can download it all using the A1 Website Download tool.

While the program will usually download entire websites that automatically includes all relevant files (what this includes can be configured), you can use it for much more. This includes using it as a pure image download tool, e.g. for downloading a photo gallery.

If you want to know how to best use our website download tool for downloading e.g. pictures or photos only, we have extended the image downloader tutorial with new explanations, instructions and screenshots

(Download a photos gallery from a website and view the finished result afterwards.)

Sitemap Generator Tutorials

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:01:43 +0000

Having just added some new tutorials to the sitemap generator online help, here is a complete list:

If you follow the more advanced sections of above sitemap tutorials, you may want to switch off easy mode in A1 Sitemap Generator.

You can also read the help article about sitemap file type differences if you just want a quick overview about sitemaps.

Microsys Newsletter #2 – 19th December 2011

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:58:44 +0000

Merry XMAS and Happy New Year to All
Seeing that XMAS is coming we wanted to send out a new issue that contained both product news and discounts. Happy holidays to you all!

New Website Search Engine Program Released
I mentioned the plans about this in both our support forum, tweets and elsewhere, yet it continued to drag out as I was buy adding features to the existing Microsys tools. I am happy to announce that we recently released the A1 Website Search Engine tool.

In its present version, it features a unique Javascript search engine builder that beats similar solutions in search quality and file size. It uses technology found in A1 Website Analyzer and A1 Keyword Research to generate a search and score index taking content in pages (including weighing e.g. titles and headers higher than normal content), internal linking structure and other factors into consideration.

While the Javascript search engine is mostly useful to smaller websites (500-1000 pages) and offline media, a PHP/database search engine solutions will be soon added to the types of search engines that can be created.

XMAS Discount for Our Products
For the rest of December and a few days into January we are going to offer a 30% XMAS discount code. This offer is good for all our products and whatever number of licenses you want

(How to get the discount is written in the email version of the newsletter. Forgot to subscribe? If you hurry followed by emailing us, it is not too late.)

Development of Our Existing Products
We are as always working hard on improving our tools, so we recommend you download and install the latest releases at regular intervals. Remember that updates to whatever major version you purchased are always free! Example: If you bought version 1.0.0 then 1.9.9 is considered an update and therefore always free. In such cases, simply get the new release by clicking the “download” link on the product page!

Social Media
If you like our tools, please let other people know All pages in our website includes a link called “Like and share” at the far top right. Clicking on it takes you to a page with social buttons for Google +1, Facebook like, Twitter tweet, StumpleUpon and more. We really appreciate everyone helping us

Creating Visual Sitemaps for Your Website

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:42:20 +0000

If you have ever wanted an automatic way to create a visual sitemap of your entire website, check out this visual sitemaps guide.

It will show you how use our sitemap generator tool to create visual navigation sitemap for your website. Simply scan you website, pick the sitemap template you want to use and create a crisp and visual sitemap for your website.

If you are not satisfied with the sitemap styles and templates included in the sitemap creator tool, just create your own HTML/CSS sitemap template! You can either modify an existing template or create one from scratch, so it matches your website layout.

Sitemap Generator on Linux Using Wine

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:58:31 +0000

If you ever wondered if you could use our sitemap generator on linux, the following answer will please you, it is yes! The main requirement to get this working is simply to install and use Wine. What Wine does is that it loads and redirects Windows system calls to Wine replacements. This means the speed of the executable is often close to that of native Linux applications.

While the Linux and Wine platform solution is not officially listed as being compatible with our sitemap generator, chances are that it will work with few or no problems. Should you encounter issues not mentioned in the Linux and sitemap generator tool help page, do please let us know!

Join a Growing Webmaster Forum

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:06:07 +0000

Back in 2010 the webmaster and website forum http://webhelpforums.com was launched. In the beginning it functioned as a support forum for our webmaster and SEO tools such as sitemap generator, website analyzer and keyword analyzer, but it quickly grew into a general webmaster forum with a broad range of topics related to running a website including SEO, SMO, PPC and many more acronyms

While the forum moderators are pretty adamant about not accepting spam and link dropping to websites of dubious quality, it continues to be a “do-follow” forum for those people who contribute content and knowledge. If this sounds good to you, check out the webmaster forum. And yes, it is also possible to market website related services in the “buy and sell” section

Just a couple of quick tips for those starting their own forum: Start out with only a few discussion sections until your forum grows. Then slowly increase amount of sections until you cover all the topics you want. You should also take forceful measures against automated spam since it can quickly lower the quality of the forum.

Microsys Newsletter #1 – 7th September 2011

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:54:32 +0000

Our Thanks To All Subscribers
As all our existing customers now have had ample time to join the newsletter, we felt it was time to release the first edition! In particular since some have asked about the special promotion codes we mentioned would be available in the newsletter now and then

As thanks to all those who signed up, all existing subscribers can for the rest of the month get 50% off on their next single-user license purchase on any of our products we sell online, i.e. A1 Sitemap Generator, A1 Website Analyzer, A1 Keyword Research, A1 Website Scraper, A1 Website Download, Launcher (Pro), TimeSage Timesheets (Pro) and Automation Batch Tools

(How to get the discount is written in the email version of the newsletter. Forgot to subscribe? If you hurry followed by emailing us, it is not too late.)

New Tool For Webmasters Coming Soon
We are currently working on a website search engine builder tool. It will allow you to easily setup search engine functionality for offline media such as CDs and online media such as websites. We are aiming for a solution that will be cost effective, easy to install, without any forced branding and able to deliver high quality search results!

It is by combining and extending technology already found in our keyword analysis and website analysis tools that we are creating this new product for webmasters, website owners and offline media publishers. As we continually build and expand our website tools technology, we will also be improving our custom search engine solution, e.g. by adding more “scoring” metrics in page content analysis used for ranking search results.

The first public release of this upcoming tool is expected in late 2011. (But can be delayed to early 2012 in case beta testing takes longer then expected.)

Social Media
If you like one of our products, please consider telling others! On all website pages including e.g. sitemap generator, there is a link at the far top right called “Like and share”. Clicking on it takes you to a page with social buttons for Google +1, Facebook like, Twitter tweet, StumpleUpon and more. We really appreciate everyone helping us

Speaking of social media, remember that you can follow us on twitter where we post product news and updates on regular basis. You can also engage with us online on our official support forum. We are always happy to receive and discuss ideas

Sitemap Generator Help in Multiple Languages

admin — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:09:39 +0000

In an attempt to expand the sitemap generator help and tutorials for users around the world, we will be launching some new websites with the best sitemap tutorials from xml-sitemaps-generator.com and html-sitemap.com translated to new languages The list of websites include:

German: xml-sitemap-generator.de – Anleitungen, Wegweiser und Hilfe für Sitemaps in Deutsch

(The list will be updated as the websites are released)

Note: If you want to translate some sitemap tutorials to your native language, let us know!