Popularity tool missing?

Where did it go???

[awoyo]

I went on vacation and came back to find one of the most useful tools (to me) is missing, or am I just really confused? The "check link popularity" tool at
[searchengineworld.com...] is gone. This was one of the best I had found giving the best results from the most number of SE's. I would really love to see it back, or perhaps I could get the code to run on my own server??? Now THAT would be awesome.

Great site, people. I really like this one!

Jim

[mivox]

Welcome to Webmaster World awoyo!

Unfortunately, so many search engines have banned automatic link checking that the link popularity tool had virtually nowhere left to search.... leading to its removal. Very sad, i agree!

I don't recall the whole list of SEs that have banned such searches, but someone should be along shortly with that info.

[Brett_Tabke]

Google, Alta, and MSN all three requested/suggested I take it offline. I can't say as I blame them, becaus rouge spiders are one of the current biggest problems with popular sites. Since I was unable to get Search Engine Endorsement of said tool without paying approx .10-.50 per search, I had to take it offline. Otherwise, it would have had to become a pay service.

Se's are cracking down on most of these utils, and you'll notice there has been a wave of rogue metasearch engines and link checkers that have been taken down the last couple of months.

On the other hand, Goto gave me full permission for the Goto keyword interrogator. Not quite a full endorsement, but a virtual handshake, and it was "ok for now".

In other tool news: I put up a new HTML validator [searchengineworld.com] based on a similar core the the W3C themselves use. I'm using SP/NSGMLS by James Clark, while they are using a modified form of it from WDG (I believe). I am using the W3C's check script to drive NSGMLS. It is so nice to have one handy like that. I will be doing some more work on it.

Also put up a webpage size checker [searchengineworld.com] with HTML to TEXT ratio.

Other offline stuff I have laying around that is getting converted: Robots.txt checker, link checker, and new Meta keyword suggestor with some unique twists.

As for code - the old problem with my code is that my library routines worm their way into everything I write. They are highly customized and it would take forever for me to convert things to generic, run anywhere scripts.

Thanks for Noticing.
Brett

[Brett_Tabke]

Finished the Robots.txt Validator [searchengineworld.com]. Please let me know if it blows up, fails to validate correctly, or is a cause for global warming.

[chiyo]

Brett, what do you suggest is a reasonable txt to html ratio? - from your size tool. Not quite sure also whether bigger or lesser is better (not sure of the direction of the ration) -

[Brett_Tabke]

I think the big thing is to try to stay in the positive range (more text than html). That is a tall order on smaller pages - but important.

[nym_fan]

Brett or Mivox: There are still a number of sites that have link checkers. From what was said, does that mean that these too will soon disappear? Or become a paid service? Also if the SE are banning these, how reliable would any info be that they are producing now?

[Brett_Tabke]

It is a question of traffic nymfan. Those that are left, don't have the traffic to show up on the se radar screen. Our two utilities were doing upwards of 7k on big days and 2k on the weekends - we were very easy to 'spot'.