Linkdex

Linkdex Reference Manual
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
THE LINKDEX INTERFACE 3
CREATING A NEW PROJECT 6
WORKING WITH TAGS 9
SETTINGS 12
Account Settings 12
Project Settings 15
Process Summary 17
Reports 18
PAGE GROUPS 19
VISIBILITY 21
Comparison View 26
RANKINGS 29
Rank Tracking/Keyword Rankings 31
Page Analysis 45
Group Analysis 46
Share Of Search 48
Forecasting 49
CONTENT 360 57
WRITER’S DESKTOP 69
LINK DATA 73
AUTHORS 81
Entity Search 82
Entity Browser 87
NETWORKS 91
Network List 93
Suggestions 94
Network Visualization 95
Left and Right Panels 101
TASKS 105
CONTACTS 115
CAMPAIGNS 123
DASHBOARD 131
Widgets 133
Reports 142
FURTHER READING 146
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Linkdex Reference Manual • Contents 12/03/15
1
12/03/15 Linkdex Reference Manual • Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Linkdex is the world’s leading SaaS platform uniting Search,
Social, PR & Content Channels. As organic marketing becomes
more integrated, Linkdex allows you and your team to work together
for greater online results.
We’ve won three successive Best SEO Software
awards across the US, UK and Europe, in
addition to awards for Innovation.
Increase your visibility, influence the influencers,
manage your teams more effectively, enhance
your outreach and get real-time answers.
Implementing Linkdex is surprisingly easy
and affordable. In a few weeks, you can
be leading the market, not chasing it.
Enterprise SEO redefined
More so than paid and social media, organic
search is the dominant vector for consumers
seeking to inform purchase decisions. In this
context, SEO provides a huge opportunity for
businesses, an opportunity that can be approached
using both traditional and innovative methods.
Linkdex provides the foundation upon
which you can successfully manage
SEO activity and maximize delivery
against brand and acquisition goals.
Why do you need Linkdex?
Navigating the organic search ecosystem
effectively can be unapologetically complicated.
Linkdex simplifies the integration and application
of complex data, while streamlining workflow and
team management, allowing you to accelerate,
refine, and improve your performance.
Visibility
Visibility allows you to get instant domain
visibility, ranking, and traffic data for any
domain. Not only is it a perfect data and
insights resource for your sales, research and
strategy teams, it also allows you to apply
complex filters to multi-domain comparisons.
Entity Search
A searchable graph database, storing and
profiling the world’s authors, websites, keywords,
content, links and social profiles. Entity Search
will completely change the way you think
about content and influencer marketing.
Ranking intelligence
Linkdex gives you search ranking data
and deep analysis for any domain. This
data is then transformed into share of
search reporting, forecasting, page and
page-group analysis and more.
Website analysis & content strategy
With Content 360 and Content Tracker
functionality, you’ll know, understand and
be able to evaluate, react, predict and
plan. Get the insights you need at site,
page group and individual URL level.
Supercharged crawl data
Our unsurpassed crawling functionality
provides the information you need to boost
the effectiveness of your sites. Whether your
site has hundreds, thousands or millions
of pages, whether it’s released or still in
production, Linkdex enables you to identify
the tasks with the most potential and integrate
this directly into your team’s workflow.
Stunning reports and presentations
Linkdex lets you create enterprise SEO
reports directly into PowerPoint, enabling
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Linkdex Reference Manual • Introduction 12/03/15
instant sharing of key insights with
stakeholders in a readily usable format.
Linkdex gives you unrivaled customizable
and scheduled reports, including:
• Search visibility and share of search
(or market share reporting)
• Multi-channel performance reporting
• Content performance reporting
• Senior management reporting
As well as PowerPoint, you can also
generate professional-looking, branded
PDF reports from the Dashboard.
Manage the management
No other platform makes such comprehensive
reporting and insights so accessible. There’s
no ‘I guess I’ll come back to you in a few days’.
Linkdex enables you to be responsive and agile.
Link data with a twist
Linkdex is at the forefront of extracting more
from linking pages than just the link. By crawling
source code and combining other data sources
we ensure link data is not only accurate, but also
intelligent, revealing a website’s type, influence,
social profiles, authors and more, transforming link
data into time-based website and page intelligence.
Global performance at a glance
Nationally or internationally, some of your
territories will inevitably perform better than
others. Linkdex lets you monitor your brand’s
successes and apply the same thinking to
make improvements elsewhere. So now you
really can think globally and act locally.
Simplified, enhanced analytics
The analytics you use every day from Google and
Adobe SiteCatalyst plug straight in to the platform
and become more powerful when combined
with the other functionality Linkdex offers.
Platform Release Overview
Linkdex exists within an agile development
environment, and new features are released
every two weeks. That’s 26 feature releases a
year. Releases fall into 3 broad categories:
• Client driven enhancements—the features
and refinements you’d like to see
• Fixes—bugs and other problems
are addressed rapidly
• Innovation—features that clients don’t
ask for but love when they arrive
Your feedback is critical in this process so please
don’t hesitate to get in touch with your thoughts
on how our data and platform can be improved.
Credits
Your account comes with two types of credits:
• Index credits: one index credit is used
every time we crawl or recrawl a domain
in the Link Data section (see p.79).
• Rank check credits: one rank check credit is
used every time we check ranking data for one
of your keywords (see p.35) against one of
your ranking configurations (see p.42).
Credits are replenished on a monthly basis and are
not interchangeable, i.e. you can’t swap leftover
rank check credits for index credits or vice-versa.
If you find yourself running out of credits and
need more, talk to your Account Manager.
Your Personal
Account Manager
If at any time you get stuck, get in touch with
your personal account manager directly. You’ll
be given their contact details when you first
join us. If you need further help at any time:
• support@linkdex.com
• +44 (0)20 7659 2390 for the UK
• +1 (212) 297 6191 for the US.
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12/03/15 Linkdex Reference Manual • The Linkdex Interface
THE LINKDEX INTERFACE
Upon logging in to Linkdex you’ll be taken to the Rankings section.
Once you’re set up and more familiar with the platform you’ll find
this a useful landing spot, but for now, let’s focus on the basic elements
of the interface.
Looking around, you’ll notice a number of panels
and menus. Let’s take a quick look at those so
you know which parts we’re referring to later on.
1. Navigation Bar
The Navigation Bar runs along the top of
your window, from here you can jump
between Linkdex’s main sections and
perform other global operations.
The dot
The dot on the far left opens a small menu for
jumping to other areas outside of the Linkdex
platform, including The Library—a useful resource
where you can find how-tos, walk-throughs, and
other knowledge base material to supplement this
manual. There’s also a Feedback item which lets
you submit feature requests and file bug reports.
Project selector
This displays the project you’re currently
viewing. If you have multiple projects running
2
3 4 5
The image above shows the Content 360 section, just because it’s one of the
screens that features all five of the screen areas, including the right panel.
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Linkdex Reference Manual • The Linkdex Interface 12/03/15
on Linkdex you can jump between them here,
as well as creating a new project (see p.6).
Sections
This is your main navigation for hopping
between the various sections of Linkdex.
Briefly, these are as follows…
Dashboard: a modular page providing a
dizzying array of tables and charts summarizing key
performances from other sections within Linkdex
(see p.131). It also provides some formatting and
annotation tools for generating reports (see
p.142).
Reporting: similar to Dashboards, this section
lets you arrange slides and reports to be output for
PowerPoint presentations (see the Linkdex
Reporting Manual).
Tasks: here you and your team can collectively
assign, track, discuss and manage tasks (see
p.105).
Visibility: gives you an overview of which
keywords your competitors are ranking with and
lets you compare your own performance with
theirs (see p.21).
Rankings: one of the most immediately useful
sections, providing an in-depth analysis of your
ranking performance for your selected keywords
(see p.29).
Content 360: from here you can crawl your
site, examine its architecture, get a quick overview
of its social media impact, and identify any
potential issues that need addressing (see p.57).
Writer’s Desktop: this section gives you a
more detailed view of your mapped pages, and
which pages are ranking for which keywords (see
p.69).
Link Data: displays information about external
links pointing to your pages (and your competitors’
pages)(see p.73).
Authors: lists authors ranking highly for your
chosen keywords, along with their contact details
(see p.81).
Networks: an optional section that provides
a unique visual representation of your Twitter
networks, suggests new contacts and gives you
valuable insight into their potential influence (see
p.91). Currently, Networks is only available to
a small number of users. If social networking
is central to your work, and you think this tool
would be useful, contact your Account Manager
and ask for it to be turned on.
Campaigns: this section allows you to set up
and manage multiple campaigns, assign authors
from your contacts list, and keep an updated log
on any progress made (see p.123).
Contacts: authors you’ve created contacts for
are available here for editing, tagging, and adding
to campaigns (see p.115).
Settings menu
From here you can change project and account
settings (see p.12), view Process Summaries (see
p.17) and Reports (see p.18), and log out.
2. Toolbar
Sitting just above the main panel, this dynamic
toolbar provides a variety of functions depending
which section you’re in. These will be discussed
in the relevant chapters, but for now, functions
common to most sections include the following:
Action: for performing actions directly
affecting the data within the section, including
adding and removing items, working with tags,
updating, importing and exporting data and more.
Filter: a powerful range of filtering options
here enable you to hone in on the information you
actually need.
Display Options: from here you can toggle
the visibility of various items and columns, and set
parameters to determine which data is displayed
(for example, which dates, how many rankings and
so on).
Add Task: provides a pop-up window for
quickly assigning tasks to other team members (see
p.106).
In some sections, the toolbar will also
include drop-down menus or a search field
for further filtering of displayed content.
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3. Left Panel
The panel on the left presents a variety of options,
depending on the section you’re using. If the
section is broken down into more than one
sub-section, these will be listed in the top left.
Below that you’ll see a series of tabs, including
domain selection options, tag management, and
more. These tabs can be expanded or collapsed
by clicking on them, and the panel itself can be
expanded or collapsed off to the side by clicking
on the icon at the top right.
4. Main Panel
Here’s where most of your data will be displayed,
usually in tabular form, although graphs and
charts can also be viewed in some sections.
You can rearrange the table by increasing or
decreasing value for many of the columns by
the column headers. An up or down arrow will
appear next to the column by which the table
is currently sorted, indicating that results for
the whole table are currently being reflowed
low-to-high, or high-to-low (numerically or
alphabetically, depending on the type of content).
5. Right Panel
This panel only appears in certain sections, and
like the left panel, can be expanded or collapsed
by clicking the icon. The right panel displays more
detailed information based on the item currently
selected within the main panel. If you find this
panel getting quite busy in some sections, you
can expand or collapse the tabs by clicking on
their headers.
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Linkdex Reference Manual • Creating A New Project 12/03/15
CREATING A NEW PROJECT
In this section we’ll walk you through a basic project setup, including the
recommended approach for how to get your new project functioning
and returning useful results.
Projects focus on a domain of your choosing.
If you only have one website you will probably
only need one project. If, however, you work
for an agency dealing with multiple websites,
then you will likely use multiple projects. When
you first set up your account, you will be led
through the project creation process.
To set up a new project from scratch, click the
name of the current project in the top left of the
Navigation Bar and select Create new project from
the drop-down. The Add a project window will
open, where you can enter the following details:
Project name
Give your project a name. If you leave this blank
the website’s domain will be used by default.
Website
The domain where the site is located,
either as a root domain or sub-domain.
Competitor website
Who is your main competitor? This may not
necessarily be a business competitor—in
SEO terms your competitors are other sites
ranking for the keywords you want to rank
for—as well as a rival business, this could
be a blog, review site, or something else
entirely. You can change this and add more
competitor domains later on (see p.77).
Country
Select the country where your website is based, or
more specifically, the country you primarily wish
to get results for. If you’re a UK company using
US-based web hosting, select UK, assuming that’s
where you do most of your business. You can add
other geographical locations for rank checking
later on (see Ranking Configurations, p.42).
Timeline
Set how frequently you want us
to reprocess your data to find
changes. More frequent checks
will consume more credits, so
there is a trade off between budget
constraints and data availability. The
default setting is Monthly, and this
is a happy medium for most uses.
Market keywords
Market defining keywords are
used by the platform to calculate
the relevance of linking pages
List up to 10 words that define
the market you’re in (e.g. money,
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12/03/15 Linkdex Reference Manual • Creating A New Project
finance, debt). These can be edited or added to
later on from Project Settings > Keywords.
Your project is now ready to work with. We
recommend setting up the following elements
to get up and running as efficiently as possible…
Integrate Google Analytics
Bringing your Google Analytics data into Linkdex
allows us to integrate vital information about
your website into the platform, such as the
traffic you experienced and more. See p.16
for advice on how to set this up, or if you use
another Enterprise Analytics solution talk to your
Account Manager about custom integrations.
Add Your Keywords
Keyword data is used across the platform to drive
ranking and forecasting results, content suggestions
and content performance. The more comprehensive
the universe of keywords being tracked is, the
more accurate the insights Linkdex can give you.
There are a number of ways of
adding keywords to Linkdex:
Option 1:
This is the best option if you already have a large
existing database of keywords, cost-per-click
(CPC) and click-through rate (CTR) data. In an
Excel spreadsheet, collate the following data:
• Keyword phrases: the keywords and their variants
that you wish to rank for in the search engine results
pages (SERPS). This can come from sources like
your historic analytics data and AdWords campaigns.
• Search volume/CPC: add custom search
volume/CPC data from your own sources
(AdWords data, for example). You can also
use our default (very comprehensive) search
volume and CPC values, either to augment
or replace your own data (see p.15).
• Tags: add a tag taxonomy that allows you
to filter your keywords into groups. You can
also assign a % conversion and monetary
value to different tags (see p.11).
• Click-through formula: Linkdex offers a
‘default’ and a ‘brand’ keyword click-though
by position formula. You can also create
your own and tell Linkdex which formula
to use at keyword level. These inputs allow
our forecasting data to provide the most
accurate information available (see p.33).
• Page mapping: add the ‘mapped page’ (the page
you think should rank) for individual keywords.
This is used to generate other insights such as
the potential value of a page (see p.34).
To help you get this in the correct format, we’ve
provided a template you can download and
use. It contains some example entries which
you can replace with your own keywords:
http://www.linkdex.com/wp-content/
uploads/2014/07/keywordimporttemplate.csv
The spreadsheet can then be uploaded
in the Rankings section (see p.39).
Option 2
From the Visibility section, examine your
competitors’ domains and identify any high
traffic and/or high search volume keywords that
they may be ranking for, as well as keywords
your own site may be ranking for that you’re not
currently tracking. Any you think may be worth
rank tracking can be added with a simple click
of the red X at the far right of each row. Multiple
keywords can be added at once by selecting
their check-boxes (far left) and choosing Action
> Add Keywords to Project from the toolbar.
Option 3
Copy and paste keyword lists from within
the Rankings section via Action > Add
Multiple Keywords (see p.39).
Option 4
Extract keywords from third party
keyword Research tools like Google
Display Planner and SEM Rush.
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Linkdex Reference Manual • Creating A New Project 12/03/15
Set Up Rank Tracking
Once you have your keywords loaded into the
platform you can group them with tags (see
p.9), so that the platform can analyze and
report on keywords by group. Set the country, geolocation,
engine, and language you want to track
your keywords in using ranking configurations (see
p.42) and apply click-through formulas (one of
our default formulas or your own custom ones)
at keyword level for more accurate Forecasting
results (see p.33). You can also define how
often you want to rank check individual keywords,
check the most important ones on a daily basis
if required (see p.35). Another important
feature to set up is page mapping (see p.34),
which allows you to see whether the correct
pages are ranking for the correct keywords.
Add Competitor Domains
Adding a domain to a project allows you
to see how that site is ranking for your
keywords, and allows us to analyze their
backlinks, crawl their content and offer
valuable insights such as the authors and
sites providing backlinks to these domains.
In Rankings, click Track Domain (or for a specific
part of a site, Track Folder/Path) from the left panel
and enter the required information (see p.36).
If you’re struggling to get to grips with who your
competitors might be from an SEO perspective, the
Competitor Detective Pro Dashboard widget (see
p.136) can help you identify the domains that are
ranking highest for your project keywords. You can
also track these domains directly from the widget.
Add Team Members
To add other team members as Linkdex users, go
to Account Settings from the Settings cog
wheel (top right) and choose User Management.
Here you can add, edit or delete team members
from the account (see p.13).
Add Tasks and Task Lists
You can add tasks from most pages on the
platform, by clicking the button and assigning
ownership to yourself or another team member.
Your current tasks are then available inside the
Tasks section. This is an important way of keeping
track of your actions and progress.
You can add, delete and edit task lists from
within Accounts and Preferences (see p.15).
Completed tasks also become event
annotations on some charts in the Rankings
and Dashboard sections, helping you understand
the long term effect of your efforts.
For more on tasks, see p.105.
Link Your Twitter Account
If doing work in the optional Networks section of
the platform or want to see the latest tweets from
authors and contacts you will need to click the
button ‘Login to Twitter’. This will connect a Twitter
account to Linkdex so we can gather data, much
like we do with Google Analytics (see p.16).
Ask Us!
If you have any questions or need help,
simply email support@linkdex.com or
talk to your account manager.
Tip: As well as your competitors, leading media
titles or blogs can a great source of author,
content performance and link intelligence.
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12/03/15 Linkdex Reference Manual • Working With Tags
WORKING WITH TAGS
When used effectively, tags are a powerful tool for managing assets
within your Linkdex account. They can be applied to keywords, links,
pages, tasks, campaigns, and contacts to help you organize these items
into custom groups and filter for visibility. They can also be used within
certain Dashboard widgets and Reporting slides to help pare down your
data into sensible chunks for charts and tables (see p.134), and can
be assigned conversion and sale/lead values for further analysis in the
Rankings section’s Forecasting page (see p.49).
Assigning tags
To assign a tag to an item (or multiple items),
select each item via its check box at the far left
of the main panel, and then from the toolbar,
select Action > Add Tag (to select from a list
of existing tags), or Action > Add New Tag
(to create a new tag). Tags will appear in little
green boxes adjacent to each tagged item,
and are easily removed by clicking the X.
You can also select Action > Remove Tag
or Remove All Tags to remove individual
or all tags from a selected item.
In some sections, tags for individual can
be added and managed from a tab on the
right panel and from pop-up windows when
changing settings and configurations.
Tags are not case-sensitive, but will retain the
case used in their initial use, so if you create a tag
called “TOP 10”, you can recall or reapply that tag
elsewhere by typing “Top 10”, “top 10”, or even
“tOp 10”, and the same original tag will be applied.
The tag list
The tag list is available at the bottom the left panel in
most sections. It presents a list of any tags currently
applied to assets in the section you’re using.
You can filter items by tag quickly by typing into the
search field; the first few letters are usually enough
to pare down the list to the tag(s) you’re looking for.
You can also click the button to reorder the list
alphabetically, or by number of items assigned to
each tag (in descending order only).
Above: The tag list in all its splendor. In this
example, Items tagged with both ‘Top 10’ AND
‘Websites’ will be shown, with the exclusion
of anything tagged with ‘Visibility’.
Tip: Some sections don’t allow you to add tags
to items, but you can still filter these items and
manage behaviors by tags already assigned to
them from other sections. For example, Writer’s
Desktop lets you filter pages by the tags
previously assigned to them in Content 360.
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Linkdex Reference Manual • Working With Tags 12/03/15
Clicking on a tag in the list turns it blue and
immediately filters items in the main panel to include
only those currently assigned to it. Click again and
the tag turns red, giving you the opposite—items
assigned to this tag will be excluded. Clicking a
third time will clear the selection. Multiple tags can
be selected simultaneously in this way, causing a
tag logic modifier to appear which lets you finetune
your selection with a drop-down for either
‘AND’ (items assigned to all the selected tags) or
‘OR’ (items containing any of the selected tags).
Your currently selected tags will also appear
at the bottom of your tag list, and from here
you can click them to toggle between include
and exclude modes, or hit the X to deselect.
Managing tags
Click Manage Tags at the bottom of the tag list to
show all the tags you currently have applied across
the entire project, which sections they’re in, and
how many assets in each they’re currently applied
to. You can filter these down by typing into the
Search field and hitting RETURN (click the X that
appears next to the Search field to clear the results).
Tags can be deleted by clicking the button
over on the right, and renamed or assigned new
conversion or sale/lead values with the button
(see Forecasting, p.49). Any tags edited here will
update globally across the project.
Tags are project-specific; if you have multiple
projects on the go, you can import tag lists
between projects, but once imported, they’ll behave
independently from those in the original project.
Keyword Tagging
One of the most important uses for tags is
to group keywords. This allows you greater
control over how you view the rankings, traffic,
and value of specific groups of keywords.
One way of grouping keywords is to create
what we’ll call keyword modifiers—commonly
repeated words that appear frequently in
your keyword phrase lists, such as:
• Brand or URL: e.g. British Airways,
www.britishairways.com
• Market, product, service or profession:
e.g. insurance, chiropractic, dress, shoes
• Purchase intent: e.g. buy, cheap, quote,
compare, offer, deal, shop, budget, low cost
• Geography: e.g. country, state/county,
city, town, zip code/postal codes
• Sex: e.g. male, female, man,
woman, boy, girl, children
• Age: e.g. 17, young, old
• Time: e.g. latest, new, old, today, 12 month, short
term, long term, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
• Q & A: e.g. which, where, when, how, why
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• Colors: e.g. red, blue, green, silver, gold
• Sizes: e.g. large, big, small, mini, thick, thin
• Occasions: e.g. birthdays, wedding,
engagement, Christmas
• Material: e.g. metal, wood, silk,
cotton, aluminum, rubber
• Product specific: e.g. part or model number
• Priority: e.g. high/medium/low
These are just a few examples, each
market has its own repeating language
patterns and you’ll soon develop a keen
sense as to what works best for you.
Another approach is to apply campaign
tags for the keywords you’re focusing on
at a specific moment in time, such as ‘Nov
2014’, ‘Q4’, ‘Spring sale’, and so on.
As well as for use in individual sections, you can
also consider assigning tags based on how you
might want grouped items to be usable within
other sections of the platform. keyword tag
groups can be used as the basis for searches
in the Entity Search section of Authors, for
example, or as the foundation for some of the
charts and tables within the Dashboards and
Reporting sections. Content 360 can be used
to tag pages based on issues that need to be
addressed, and these tags can then be used within
Writer’s Desktop as a kind of basic task system.
Once tags are applied to your keyword
phrases you’ll be able to see the keyword
rankings, number of searches, traffic, and
value for individual and combined groups
of tags, giving you deeper insight into:
• How much tagged groups are worth
• Where you and your competitors are
performing and underperforming
• Where opportunities exist to increase sales
because of sufficient value and low competition
• Where and how specific and related keyword use
could improve the relevance of existing content
and where authoring new pages is necessary
• Where you should build links and what
the context of those links should be
How many keywords
should be tagged?
We recommend that you add the keywords that
define your industry. This normally means adding
hundreds and even thousands of keywords,
including as many variations and combinations
of phrases as there are possible searches.
It’s not uncommon for large keyword sets to have
over 100 tag groups. The more comprehensively
you’re able to tag keywords, the better you’ll
grasp how performance and opportunity change
by group. It’s an essential part of formulating
strategy and informing tactical work.
Quirks
Application of tags varies slightly between
sections. At the time of writing, the
following quirks need to be considered:
• Rankings section: tags can be edited
directly within each keyword item in the
main panel, and new tags created by
typing them directly into the tag field.
• Tasks, Content360, Campaigns and
Contacts: tags in these sections can be
similarly added, but the field for achieving
this is over in the right panel.
• Tags you create in one section may not
appear as available in other sections, but
if you create a tag with the same name in
two different sections these will effectively
behave as the same common tag.
Tag conversion & value
Tags can have a conversion rate and monetary
value assigned to them. Keywords with tags
that contain this data will be able to have
conversion forecasts calculated in the Forecasting
section (see p.49). To add these metrics
click Manage Tags in Rankings (see p.37).
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Linkdex Reference Manual • Settings 12/03/15
SETTINGS
The settings sections are available from the cog wheel at the far right
of the navigation bar. From here you can manage and oversee many of
the functions that span across the whole Linkdex platform.
Depending on the assigned role for your account,
you may not have access to all of these areas
and settings. The full range of settings will only
be available to users assigned as Admins.
Account Settings
Your Profile
Profile update
You can use this area to change the email address
and password you use to log on to the platform.
Following task lists
Following task lists is an easy way to automatically
add you as a follower to any tasks assigned
to that task list (see Tasks, p.112)
Select the task list you want to follow from the
drop-down and click Follow Task List. The screen
will refresh and a new box will appear containing
your followed lists. You can add more task lists to
follow using the same process. To stop following,
simply hit the button at the far right.
Email preferences
The following three options can be switched
on and off, controlling which kinds of events
you receive notifications about via email:
• Notification when assigned a task
• Notification when an export is available
• Notification when a domain’s
index or crawl is available
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12/03/15 Linkdex Reference Manual • Settings
Subscriptions & Credits
Information can be found here about your
subscription type and monthly credit allocation.
Current Credit Balance shows your remaining
index and rank checking credits for this month.
User Management
To add a user to your account, click the Add New
User button. A pop-up window lets you enter their
email address (they’ll need a unique address: you
can’t use the same email for multiple accounts),
password, name, and nickname (the name that
will actually appear for them across the platform).
You can also set their role from the dropdown
at the bottom of this window:
• Admin: the user will have unrestricted
access to all sections of the platform.
• Standard user: the user has access to almost
all functions of the platform, with the exception
of the Subscriptions & Credits area, Project
Groups, and some other account settings,
such at the ability to change their role.
• Link builder: access is restricted to the Tasks,
Link Data, and Campaigns areas of the platform.
• Tasks only: access is restricted to the
Tasks and Campaigns sections.
• Dashboard only: only the Dashboard and
Reporting sections will be available.
• Data reviewer: only the Dashboard,
Reporting, Rankings, Link Data, and Authors
sections are available. Functionality within
these sections will also be limited to a more
observational role. Users will not be able to
add domains or keywords, for example.
Project groups (see below) can also be assigned
from here, allowing the user access to any projects
within that group (if you haven’t set up project
groups, this option will not be visible, and all
users will have access to all of your projects).
Users can be deleted by clicking the relevant
button or their details edited with the button.
Individual passwords can also be changed with the
button.
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Account access control
A couple of options here can be
selected with check boxes:
• Restrict user management to administrators:
makes the User Management area
unavailable to all other roles.
• Report recipients enabled: you’ll need this
switched on to add report-only users. It
activates an extra page, available from the left
panel called Report Recipients (see below).
Report Recipients
Anyone you want to be able to access reports
and exported data from Dashboards and other
areas of the platform needs to have a user
account of one kind or another. To create limited
accounts with access to only these reports,
make sure the Report Recipients Enabled box
is checked in User Management (see above).
Click Add New Report Recipient, enter their
details and assign them a password (you’ll
need to send these details to your recipient
separately). The platform should then email
the new recipient when reports assigned to
them become available to log in and view.
Projects
This page provides a list of all your current projects
(or the ones you have access to). All you can do
from here is edit a project’s name with the
button, or delete it with the button.
To create a new project, click the current project
name at the left of the Navigation Bar, next to
the Blue Dot, and select Create New Project.
Project settings
Task target pages not validated
When setting up a task (see p.106), a target
page can be assigned for the calculation of
HIT points. Normally, target pages entered
are checked to see if they actually exist, and
an alert is issued if not page is found. Tick
this box to disable the validation process.
Project Groups
Project groups can be used to assign and restrict
certain users’ access to certain projects. This is
incredibly useful for agencies with large teams and
multiple projects on the boil at the same time.
They’re simple to set up, click Create New Project
Group and give the group a name. You can then
assign each of you projects to a group from the
drop-down menus in the Project Allocation area.
Next, head over to User Management and edit
each user with the button. The option to assign
them to a project group will become available at
the bottom of the pop-up window.
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Project Settings
Domains
Select any of your project domains from the dropdown
list here to change the following settings:
Always display with www domain
With this option selected, the domain will be
displayed with the www prefix (i.e. www.domain.
com), without it, the domain will be shown as
entered (or whatever the site redirects to).
Link data limited to backlinks
pointing to the www domain
This restricts the Link Data section to only log
backlinks which point to full domain with www
prefix (i.e. links pointing to www.domain.com, as
opposed to any just pointing to domain.com).
If you are unsure, please contact Support
before changing these settings.
Timelines
Align domain timelining
This option lets you reset the timelining points
of your project domains so that they are all
timelined at the same time. Any new domains
you add after this will timeline to the date
they were added, but you can use this option
again to remedy that situation if required.
Task Lists
Create task list
Enter a name into the Create Task List box to
create a new list. We’ll add this to your current
project but you can also tick the check-box if you
want the task list to be added to other projects.
Delete task list
Select the list to delete from your current project
from the drop-down menu. Tick the check-box
to delete the list from all of your projects.
Keywords
Market defining keywords are used by
the platform to calculate the relevance of
linking pages in the Link Data section.
Ideally, you should add up to 10 of these with the
Add New Keyword button, the more you add (up
to 10 or so), the more accurate our relevance score
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will be. keywords can be edited with the
button, or delete it with the button.
Recalculate keyword relevance
After updating your keywords, click this button
and the Link Data keyword relevance value will
be recalculated for all of your project domains.
Search volume and CPC data
The drop-down menu here gives you four options
here for setting the search volume and CPC Data
used and displayed in Rankings and Reporting,
and how any custom data you’ve uploaded in
the ranking section (see p.39) is treated:
• Default data only: Linkdex will use its
own default CPC and search volume data.
We have accumulated this data from the
Visibility section, and for most purposes this
will be a perfectly adequate solution.
• Default in preference to custom: you can upload
your own custom values if preferred. The default
data will still be used where available, but your
custom data is used to fill in any gaps where
we do not have values for certain keywords.
• Custom in preference to default: the
opposite of the option above: your custom
data is used by default, with our default
data being used to fill in the gaps.
• Custom data only: only your custom data will
be used, with any missing information left blank.
Page Groups
Page groups are collections of website pages
(URLs) pulled together by a series of rules. By
grouping pages for different topics or areas
of your website, such as your /blog/, you can
report on the performance of content clusters.
Because page groups is a little more
complicated than other Settings pages, we’ve
given it its own section, see p.19.
Google Analytics
In order for Linkdex to provide insightful and
actionable reports, it needs to be able to integrate
with your Google Analytics account. Authorizing
Google Analytics integration doesn’t take long and
makes your Linkdex experience much richer.
If you don’t currently have Google Analytics set up
at all, this is also a relatively straightforward process
for anyone with basic HTML skills. Visit www.
google.com/analytics and follow the instructions
to set up an account and analytics profile.
Once this is done, click the Authorize Now
button to authorize Linkdex, and log in to Google
on the page that follows. If you have more than
one Google account, make sure you’re logged
into the one that has access to your Analytics.
You’ll then need to grant access to Linkdex.
Our anonymous application will not have
access to your password or any other personal
information from your Google account and
you can revoke access at any time from
this page or from your Google account.
Your browser will then head back over to Linkdex.
To set which analytics profiles Linkdex uses, select
it from the drop-down menu next to Which of
these analytics profiles tracks your domain?
and click Save. Once saved, this menu can be
used to swap to another profile, if needed.
If you need to, you can click Change
Google Analytics Account to use a different
analytics account altogether, or Remove
Access & Data Associated With Google
Analytics Account to revoke all access.
Twitter Authorization
Linkdex can use your Twitter account to access
the Twitter API and request the additional
data needed to make the insights we provide
you as accurate and useful as possible.
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To get influencer recommendations from Linkdex
Networks and show authors’ recent tweets you’ll
need to authorize access your Twitter account.
We don’t use your account to access your
tweets and follower data, just to gather the detail
mentioned above, and you can revoke access at
any time (once authorized, this page will feature
a Remove Twitter Authorization button).
In full, we’ll be able to:
• Read Tweets from your timeline
• See who you follow
We will not be able to:
• Follow new people
• Update your profile
• Post Tweets for you
• Access your direct messages
• See your Twitter password
Setting up LInkdex with Twitter is as simple as
clicking Authorize Now and logging in to your
Twitter account on the page that follows.
Process Summary
Process Summary tracks any analysis, exports,
downloads, uploads, crawls and other pending
processes, keeping an archive of these events for
up to 3 months. It’s an overview of everything you
might be waiting for the platform to finish. It is split
into two parts, accessible from the left panel:
• Uploads: uploaded contact lists, historical
rankings, keywords, and campaigns are
listed here, along with information about
the file type, upload date, and status.
• Analysis: any analysis events (network
suggestions and analysis, domain, link data
analysis, and Content 360 crawls), whether
automated or manually executed will be listed
here, along with details about the type of
analysis, the date, status, and the domain or
network that was the subject of the analysis.
The Status column shows whether a process
is queued, running, failed or completed.
This section is for reference only—there are
no actions to be performed—although you
can create a task from here if you need to.
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Reports
All reports and exported data you generate
from elsewhere in the platform (with the
exception of PowerPoint files generated by
the Reporting section, which are accessible
directly from that section) are available to
download from here. Reports is split into
two areas, accessible from the left panel:
• Manual: any PDF reports or spreadsheet data
you’ve output manually are collated here.
• Scheduled: automated reports from the
Dashboard section are deposited here
automatically at their scheduled intervals.
In both cases, whenever a new item appears
in the Reports section, you, or the intended
recipients will receive an email alerting them
to its availability. Once logged in, individual
reports can be downloaded from the link
at the right hand side of each row.
As with other sections of the platform, Reports
is laid out as a table which can be re-ordered in
ascending or descending value from the column
headers. Multiple items can be selected from the
check boxes at the left for deletion (from the
Action button on the toolbar). You can also delete
individual items with the button at the far right
of each row.
Tip: As well as team members viewing reports,
it’s also possible to set up limited ‘report only’
accounts for interested parties. You can do
this from the Report Recipients part of the
Account Settings section (see p.14).
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PAGE GROUPS
Page groups are collections of website pages (URLs) pulled together
by a series of rules. By grouping pages for different topics or areas of your website, such as your /blog/, you can report on the performance
of content clusters.
Page groups combine with key areas of the platform; Tasks, Rankings and Content 360
results can all be filtered by pages within
these groups.
Ranking annotations can also be filtered
by page group selection, giving you a
clearer idea of any associated tasks that
were completed or links built that may have directly impacted page and ranking visibility.
Page groups can be set up from Project Settings, which can be found under the Settings cog wheel in the top-right of the Navigation Bar.
Main Panel
The main panel presents your Page groups in the familiar tabular list.
Page group/description
The name and description you’ve given the group.
Active tasks
The number of currently active tasks set with target pages that fall within the Page group.
Total HIT points
The total combined HIT points of these active tasks.
Pages
The total number of pages the page group contains.
Toolbar
Action
Delete
Deletes the selected page groups.
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Add page group
Name
Enter the name of your page group.
Description
Add a short explanatory description here for easy identification later on.
Selection
The drop-down and text field here are where you create the individual rules that make up your page group. The drop-down menu offers a full range of affirmative and negative modifiers—exact matches, starts with, does not start with, and so on—the text field can then be used to enter the text this modifier will act on to create the rule. For example you might add ‘Starts With: /blog/’, or ‘Contains: shoes’.
Once you’ve set a rule up, add it to the rule
list by clicking the + to the right. It will then
appear in the area below and can be deleted
with the button.
You can add multiple rules to a page group, fine-tuned with the Logic setting (below).
Logic
If adding multiple rules you can control how these interact by setting the logic to AND or OR:
•
AND: we look for pages that match all of the rules combined.
•
OR: we look for pages that match any
of the rules. Add task
This button appears on almost every page of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut for creating new tasks and assigning them to yourself or other team members. For a complete overview of tasks, see p.105.
Right Panel
Active tasks for pages in this group
If tasks are assigned a Target Page that falls within the selected page group, you’ll see them listed in the right panel here, along with a link to the page, a link to its details in Content 360 (by clicking the button), and the HIT points associated with the task.
High Impact Tasks (HITs)
Assigning tasks to pages (see p.107) lets you use page groups to see which groups contain the most tasks, and which of those tasks have the most HIT Points, allowing you to better prioritize your workflow.
For more on how HIT Points are calculated, see p.108.
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VISIBILITY
Visibility can be thought of almost as the flip side of the Rankings coin;
rather than researching your rankings for known keywords, this section
gives you insight into which keywords a site ranks for and whether
they’re being tracked or not.
This can give you an idea as to how your
domain is being found, and what your
competitors are being found for, essentially
how Google perceives a domain’s authority
on certain types of subject matter.
We flesh this data out with information on
number of SERP positions, which pages
rank, estimated traffic and media values and
provide bar charts, a handy alert system
and comprehensive filtering options to help
you hone in on the insights you need.
Visibility draws on the platform’s extensive
keyword database, but only returns results for
those which we have reliable search volume and
CPC data for (we don’t include any with no value
or a zero value). Currently this equates to around
54 million keywords, and is updated monthly.
Before you can start using Visibility you’ll need to
add some domains as these aren’t automatically
generated from your tracked domains in Rankings
or Link Data. Simply click Research New Domain
from the left panel and type or paste in the domain.
Once you’ve added multiple domains you can
click on your primary domain in the left panel
and compare it with others by clicking the ‘Vs’
buttons. This adds the selected domains to
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the summary charts and the table, helping you
identify new opportunities for ranking visibility.
It can take a little while to completely load data
in this section. This is particularly noticeable for
large domains, so it’s not unusual to see a loading
icon for a while when switching domains.
Main Panel
Summary charts
Summary charts can give you a quick glimpse into
how a site’s ranking performance breaks down
(based on items shown under your current filter
settings, see p.24), and the estimated value of
those ranks. It appears above the main panel table
and can be switched on from the toolbar by
pressing the Hide/Show Summary button.
When comparing multiple domains (see p.26),
these charts stack vertically for each domain,
providing an extra visual layer to the comparison.
SERP positions
This stacked bar chart illustrates a site’s
ranking performance in terms of how many
keywords fall into each ranking tier (1-3,
4-10, 11-20 and so on). At a glance you can
see how these portions measure out, and
hovering your mouse pointer over the bar
will reveal the actual numbers in each tier.
Ranking pages
A single bar and number shows you
how many pages within the site are
achieving these ranking positions.
Estimated traffic
The number above the bar indicates the estimated
traffic driven to the domain based on its current
ranking performance (see p.33 for more on
how this is calculated). The bar itself illustrates
this figure as a percentage of the total traffic
opportunity that could be generated from these
keywords. Hovering over the chart reveals how
these portions break down into numbers, with
your estimated traffic at the left in blue, and
untapped potential traffic in gray. Percentages and
total traffic opportunity are listed underneath.
Media value
We calculate a value here based on a site’s
estimated traffic multiplied by the CPC values for
each keyword to show you the potential equivalent
spend that would be necessary to achieve that
same ranking performance from paid search on
a monthly basis. As with the Estimated Traffic
chart, this is expressed as a percentage of the total
opportunity on a bar chart with the percentages
and total opportunity listed underneath.
Selection box
Check the boxes for any keywords you’d like
to perform any actions on from the toolbar,
Tip: All domains apart from the primary
domain are removed from the list if they
have not been looked at for 14 days.
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or use the Select All box in the header row
to select all keywords in the current view.
Keyword
Unlike in the Rankings section, the keywords shown
here are the ones the selected site is ranking for,
irrespective of whether you’re tracking it or not.
Universal search
Google results can contain ‘universal’ results—
specialized search results mixed in with the
standard ones—these can include local listings,
video, image, and news results. Universal
results can dramatically impact click-through
rates—are you ranking for image and video
listings? Do you appear in Google Places
results?—this column gives you a quick insight
into the kinds of media a site is visible for.
Linkdex flags which combination of
these are found amongst the results
with a series of small icons:
Video
The domain is ranked as part of a video result.
Video results are present but the domain is not
ranked as one of them.
News
The domain is ranked as part of a news result.
News results are present but the domain is not
ranked among them.
Places/local
The search page includes Google Places results
and the domain is ranking among those listed.
The search page includes Google Places
results, but not for this domain, or the
competitor domain you’re currently viewing.
Image
The domain is ranking as part of an Image
Search result being displayed on the search
page.
Image results are present but the domain is not
ranked as one of them.
Brand
We also flag when search results for
a keyword include what appear to be
companies. We call this signal “Brand”:
The selected domain appears as a company in
the search results.
Another domain appears as a company in the
search results.
If you don’t recognize an Icon, hover the mouse
pointer over it to reveal what it represents.
Rank/change
The first number here indicates the site’s current
rank for this keyword. To the right of this you’ll see
a green UP or red DOWN arrow to show
whether this position is higher or lower than the
last time it was rank checked, followed by the
number of places it’s risen or fallen by.
Ranking page
You’ll see the full path of the page ranking for the
keyword here (with “/” indicating the domain root
or index page). Click this link to open the page in
question in a new browser tab, or click the
icon to examine it in the Content 360 section (see
p.57).
Other rankings
If multiple pages within a site are ranking for the
same keyword, they will be indicated in this column
by a number, clicking on it pops up a window
with links to the URLs of the other ranking pages.
Search volume/change
The number of times this particular search query
has been used in the selected country within
the last month. A higher number here could
be an indication that the keyword in question
could be worth chasing if you’re not currently
ranking for it. We also use this figure towards
calculating Estimated Visits (see below).
As with the Rank/Change columns, you’ll see
another number to the right, representing the
amount this value has changed since the last
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rank-check, along with UP or DOWN
arrows to show the direction of change.
Est. traffic/change
Estimated Traffic is an expression of clickthrough
rate related to search volume based
on rank. Linkdex applies one of two generic
click-through curves (the Brand CTR curve if
the result is flagged as a brand, otherwise the
Standard CTR curve is applied) to approximate
this figure (the calculation being relevant
ranking position click-through x monthly
search volume = estimated visits per month).
Again, to the right you’ll see the value change since
the last rank-check, along with UP or DOWN
arrows to show direction of movement.
CPC
This is the current Cost-Per-Click value for
paid search results via Google AdWords.
Competition is fierce for higher value
keywords, but they usually offer great
conversion rates and are worth ranking for.
Tracked
A tick or cross here indicates whether or not the
keyword is currently being tracked in your project.
If you see keywords a competitor is ranking for, but
which you’re not currently tracking, you can click
the red to add it to your project.
Toolbar
Action
Add keywords to project
Adds any selected keywords to your rank-tracking
list. You can also do this for individual items by
clicking the red at the far-right of any currently
untracked keyword rows.
Export
This will export all data from the current view (i.e.:
the results returned from the currently selected
domain(s) with the current filter settings) to Excel
or CSV format. Once exported, the resulting file
will be available for download from the Reports
section (see p.18). If a domain isn’t indexed or
timelined in the Link Data section, you’ll have the
option to start doing so when you try to export it.
Filter
Ranking range
Use this filter to pare down your results, you
may only want to see keywords ranking
in the top 3, from rank positions 21-30, or
everything, including recently unranked.
Keyword
Type a word or portion of a word here and hit
Return, the table will update to only display
keywords containing that text. Click the X to
the right of the text field to clear the filter.
Est. traffic delta
Can be used to show only those keywords
whose estimated traffic has gone up
in the last 30 days, or down.
Est. traffic range (from X to Y)
Set maximum and minimum parameters
to see keywords whose estimated traffic
falls into that range. Useful if, for example,
you want to focus your attention on only
the heaviest traffic generating phrases.
Search volume (from X to Y)
Similar to the above option; set your
parameters to see keywords generating
search volumes within that range.
Tip: Multi-domain exports are enabled
in Visibility, but only if the domains being
exported are already indexed and timelined
in the project (from within the Rankings
or Link Data sections, see p.79) and not
just researched in the Visibility section.
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CPC range (from X to Y)
And again, set minimum and/or maximum CPC
to see keywords falling within that range of value.
Universal results
Select which universal search results you’d like
to be taken into account. The two drop-down
menus can be used to fine tune, including or
excluding your selection, and taken from your
rankings, other rankings, or anyone’s rankings.
Exclude keywords already tracked
This hides results for any keywords you’re
already tracking in the project, allowing
you to focus on other search queries you
or your competitors are ranking for.
Display options
The various options here let you
switch on or off some of the columns
available on the main panel table:
• Universal Search
• Search Volumes
• Estimated Traffic
• CPC
• Other Ranking Pages Count
Hide/show summary
This button simply toggles visibility of
the summary charts (see p.22).
Add task
A quick shortcut for creating new tasks
and assigning them to yourself or other
team members. For a complete overview
of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Country
Visibility lets you examine how keywords are
ranking across different search territories. To quickly
see what a site is ranking for in, say, Canada,
select it here from the drop-down menu. Results
often vary considerably for different countries,
so this is paramount if you’re assessing rankings
for a brand that traverses multiple territories.
Found
The number at the far right of the toolbar
shows the total number of keywords found
under the current country and filter settings.
For large domains that may take a while
to load, during loading this number will
represent an estimated figure for the total
number of keywords the domain ranks for.
Left Panel
The left panel lets you jump between and
compare domains. Click on any of the domains
to examine its visibility performance, or click the
Vs sign to compare it against another selected
domain. You can compare as many as you like
(screen real estate permitting), either against
your own domain, or against each other. For
more, see Comparison View, p.26.
Tip: The universal results drop-downs are
particularly useful for excluding keywords with
Brand flags when looking at competitors.
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Research new domain
Click here to add competitor domains so that you
can compare them with your primary domain.
Domains (excluding your Primary one) are
deleted after 14 days of inactivity in this section.
Comparison View
Comparison view takes the selected domains and compares their ranking performance
for all the keywords that any of them is currently ranking for (within the current filter
and country settings).
Columns for Search Volume, CPC and
Keywords return the same values as for
the single domain view, with Rank and
Estimated Traffic columns being shown
side by side for each selected domain.
You’ll also notice the summary chart area
shows charts for each domain stacked
up for a quick visual comparison.
For large domains, it can take a while
for the Comparison view to load
up. Sit tight and it’ll get there.
Alerts
Alerts are deceptively useful, giving you a
quick overview of any keywords not meeting
your minimum performance threshold. They
display as color-coded squares, sometimes
divided diagonally into two triangles when
you’re being alerted simultaneously to two
things. Here’s what the colors mean:
Red: Your competitor is ranking higher than you
Green: You are ranking higher than
your competitor
Blue: An opportunity exists where the
combined traffic of the domains
displayed is substantially less than the
total search volume for the keyword.
To fine-tune alerts to your requirements, click
Display Options on the toolbar. From here you’ll be
able to specify the percentages that trigger each
alert. For example, blue (opportunities) can be set
to trigger when combined traffic for all compared
domains is less than X percent of the total search
volume.
Toolbar
The toolbar in Comparison view is more or less
the same as for the single domain view, with the
Tip: For the purposes of alerts, the domain
selected first in the left panel can be
thought of as ‘You’ and any domains you
select via the ‘Vs’ buttons can be thought
of as competitors, although this can be
swapped around with the Domain option
under the Filters button (see below).
The left panel in Visibility. Click the ‘VS’
button to the right of a domain to compare
it to the selected domain. Depending which
domain is initially selected and which one
is used for comparison affects the resulting
table and alert icons (see below).
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exception of the extra Alert settings available under
Display Options (see above), and a couple of extra
options under the Filters button (described below).
Filter
Domain
This option lets you select which of the compared
domains is the one comparisons are being made
against. Primarily this affects the alert display
in terms of which domain behaves as ‘You’.
Alerts
Reduces the keywords displayed based on any
with red alerts, green alerts, and/or blue alerts.
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RANKINGS
One of the most useful sections of the Linkdex platform, Rankings
shows you which keywords are getting you a high rank on Search Engine
Results Pages (SERPs), exactly how those keywords are working for you
(or not), and how they’re working for your competitors.
The Rankings section is key to monitoring your
visibility in organic search and shaping a strategy
around the keywords that have the potential
to make you the most money. Among other
things, for keywords, groups of keywords, and
the whole of your market you’ll discover…
What, who, and why?
• Who’s your competition?
• What’s your share of search?
• Which specific keywords are performing
for you and your competitors?
• How many pages are you getting
to rank vs your competitors?
• For a specific keyword, is the
correct page ranking for you?
Performance
• How many visits are you currently getting?
Tip: When we talk about your competitors
within the context of SEO, we’re not
necessarily talking about your direct business
competitors. Instead, we’re referring to your
search competitors—other sites that are
competing with you for keyword rankings in
search engines—these may include some of
your business competitors, but also blogs,
news sites, and a variety of other sources.
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• How many visits are you forecast to
get if you improve your ranking?
• What’s the equivalent paid search media
value of your current and potential traffic?
Trends
• How did a specific keyword’s
performance change through time?
The importance of keywords
Linkdex achieves all of these things by rank
tracking analysis of keywords. Through keyword
tracking you can shine a spotlight on what
consumers are trying to find out about, or at
least, which words or phrases they’re using
in order to try and reveal that information.
Once you know that, you already know plenty
about the content you’re going to need on
your website in order to get their attention.
With Linkdex, you can also discover the equivalent
cost-per-click value of any given keyword or
group from paid search results, and the potential
value of improving your ranking for that query.
We rank track the five main search engines
worldwide; Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu and
Yandex. If you’re anything like the majority of other
users, it’s the Google results you’ll be interested in.
On a weekly or daily basis (you can choose
either for any keyword, see p.35) the Rank
Tracking Section examines your domain’s
SERP position for a keyword phrase against a
set configuration consisting of search engine,
language, and geographical factors (for more
on this, see Ranking Configurations, p.42).
Valuable information can also be obtained by
rank checking a list of target keywords your
competitors may be using, but for which
you currently have no landing page.
To allow you to examine ranking performance
from every angle, we’ve divided Rankings into five
pages, which you can jump between from the
Organic Visibility list at the top of the left panel:
• Rank Tracking/Keyword Rankings: compare
rankings, values for any search term for you and
your competitors, see cost-per-click values for
each keyword and manage click-through rates.
• Page Analysis: gives you a more detailed
view of the top ranking pages from your
site for each keyword, and the current
and potential value of each page.
• Group Analysis: once you’ve tagged your
keywords into useful groups (see p.10), this
page will give you a broad overview of the
amount of traffic and value these groups
generate.
• Share of Search: a table and pie chart
for an at-a-glance visualization of the
selected domain(s) share of the search
results for your tracked keywords.
• Forecasting: something of a crystal ball, this
page shows you the potential number of
visits and associated value if you were able
to improve your rank for specific keywords.
These pages are covered in more detail below.
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Rank Tracking/Keyword Rankings
The Keyword Rankings page can look a little intimidating at first, the main panel
consisting of a dense, many-columned table. As with other tables within the platform,
you can rearrange it alphanumerically by ascending or descending value based on any
column’s data by clicking each column’s label in the header row.
Keyword Rankings Table
From left to right, the Keyword Rankings
table in the main panel works as follows
Selection box
A simple tick box at the far left of each keyword
entry where you can select single or multiple items
(or you entire collection of keywords, by clicking
the Select All box in the table’s header row) for
performing actions on them. Clicking the
Action button will open a menu of options (Delete,
Set CTR, and various tagging activities) that can be
applied to your selected keywords.
Above: detail of the Keyword Rankings table in all its glory.
Tip: A good way to identify keywords that
might be worth adding is to examine your
competitors’ domains in the Visibility section
to see which keywords they’re ranking for that
you aren’t currently tracking (see p.21).
Those with the highest CPC (cost-per-click)
values are almost definitely worth going after.
Tip: The bottom-right of the main panel lets you
change the amount of rows you view at once
or switch between ‘pages’ of the table data.
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Chart button
Select up to 10 keywords you’d like to appear on
the chart (see p.44) by toggling them with this
button. You can deselect all by toggling the chart
button in the table’s header row.
Keyword
These are all the keywords you’re currently
tracking. You’ll notice a lot of these are very
similar, incrementally different variations on the
same core phrases. To make sense of these it
can be useful to add tags to common types
so that you can begin to arrange them into
groups (see Working With Tags, p.9).
To the right of each keyword you’ll see a small
button indicating the number of tags currently
applied to it. Clicking this button expands the
row to show you these tags. You can delete
individual tags directly from here simply by
clicking the X on each tag, and add new
tags by typing them straight in to the text
field. The text field will present a drop-down
autocomplete for any pre-existing tag names
partially matching your typed text, which
you can select to quickly apply the tag.
Universal search
Google results can contain ‘universal’ results—
specialized search results mixed in with the
standard ones—these can include local listings,
video, image, author and news results. Universal
results can dramatically impact click-through
rates—are you competing against image and
video listings? Do you appear in Google Places
results?—This column gives you a quick insight into
the kinds of media a search query is turning up.
Linkdex flags which combination of
these are found amongst the ranking
results with a series of small icons:
Video
You’re ranked as part of a video result.
Video results are present but you’re not ranked
as one of them.
News
You’re ranked as part of a news result.
News results are present but you’re not ranked
among them.
Places/local
The search page includes Google Places results
and your site is ranking among those listed.
The search page includes Google Places
results, but not for your domain, or the
competitor domain you’re currently viewing.
Image
You’re ranking as part of an Image Search result
being displayed on the search page.
Image results are present but you’re not ranked
as one of them.
Paid search results
The small red number here indicates the
number of paid search results currently
appearing for this query.
Rich snippet
Appears if the ranking has a rich snippet.
Brand
We also flag when search results for
a keyword include what appear to be
companies. We call this signal “Brand”:
Your domain appears as a company in the
search results.
Someone else’s domain appears as a company
in the search results.
Auto corrected
Indicates the search query contained a typo or
some other quirk that the search engine, in its
wisdom, decided to correct.
If you don’t recognize an Icon, hover the mouse
pointer over it to reveal what it represents.
Rank change
When a page is ranking you’ll see a number here
indicating the current rank. To the right of this you’ll
see a green UP or red DOWN arrow to
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show whether it’s ranking higher or lower than the
last time it was rank checked, followed by the
number of places it’s risen or fallen by. For ranks
remaining unchanged you’ll see a gray sign,
while newly added keywords being ranked for the
first time (or any keyword being ranked above 120
for the first time) will have a blue .
Ranked page
If a page is ranking within the selected domain
you’ll see the full path of that page here (with “/”
indicating the domain root or index page). You
can click this link to open the page in question
in a new browser tab, or click the icon to
examine the page in the Content 360 section
of Linkdex (see p.57).
Other rankings
If multiple pages are ranking for the same keyword,
they will be indicated in this column by a number.
Clicking this number expands the row to show
these other pages. Multiple page results can
also exist for the same page, where a separate
result is ranking this page for that keyword.
Estimated visits
Estimated Visits is an expression of click-through
rate related to search volume based on rank.
Typically, more people click the first result on
a SERP than the second, the result ranked third
receives even fewer clicks and so on. This dropoff
in the number of visits the further down the
search results you go can be represented by a
click-through curve. By default, Linkdex applies
a generic click-through curve to approximate
this figure (the calculation being Relevant
Ranking Position Click-through x Monthly
Search Volume = Estimated Visits per month).
For more accurate results you can apply
your own brand or customer specific cickthrough
curves (see Manage CTR, p.37)
Search volume
This is the number of times this particular
search query has been used (within your current
ranking configuration) within the last month.
A higher number here could be an indication
that the keyword in question could be worth
chasing if you’re not currently ranking for it. If
we currently have no data for a keyword you’ll
see a hyphen here. As mentioned, we use this
figure towards calculating Estimated Visits.
CPC
This is the current Cost-Per-Click value for
paid search results via Google AdWords.
Competition is fierce for higher value
keywords, but they usually offer great
conversion rates and are worth ranking
for. If we currently have no data for a keyword
you’ll see a hyphen here, showing areas where
you potentially provide your own data.
By default, we draw Search volume and
CPC values from our own exhaustive
keyword database, but you can provide
your own custom values as part of a CSVformat
bulk keyword upload (see p.39).
You can then set various options defining
how we use this data in the Keywords page
under Project Settings (see p.15).
CTR
If you’ve manually set the click through rate (CTR)
for a keyword (see p.40), the name of this CTR
curve will appear here, so you know which model
was used to generate the Estimated Visits result.
By default, your keywords are set to our
Non-Brand click through rate (CTR) model
and the column will appear empty.
Brand/Non-brand CTR
Because click-through rates vary by position
according to the type of search (e.g. brand vs
product search and local vs non-local search),
Linkdex has separate ‘Brand’ and ‘Non-brand’
CTR models. You can also create custom
CTR models and apply them to the keywords
of your choice. (See Manage CTR, p.37)
Our two default CTR percentage curves were
sourced anonymously from Linkdex users who
have given us permission to gather this data.
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Page/KW mapping
A convenient at-a-glance alert to see if the
correct page is ranking for this keyword.
As simple as it looks, page mapping forms a vital
part of your SEO strategy. Having a page ranking
first for a search term without realizing the wrong
page is appearing can mean a drastic drop in
conversions, potentially losing all the benefit of
that position. This is particularly common where
blog posts outrank carefully crafted landing pages
and with international sites when—even worse—a
landing page can appear in the wrong language!
For any keyword, you can assign a page URL
you believe should rank. If the wrong page
ranks, Linkdex flags the issue. Using this feature
allows you to plan which content to write,
edit, improve, or use on-site optimization
strategies (redirects or structural changes) to
ensure the preferred page is the most visible.
Once mapped, pages will also appear in the
Writer’s Desktop section (see p.69).
How to set up page mapping
To map a page, click on the Edit button on the
far right of the row for the relevant keyword. Then
insert the URL you wish to assign in the Mapped
Page field.
To map multiple pages at once or edit them in
bulk, you can choose multiple keywords with the
A typical View Full Ranking Results display, with the Universal Search results (in this case,
multiple local listings) showing at the top, and flagged with the appropriate icon.
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selection boxes, and then click on the Action
button and choose ‘Update Mapped Page’.
For each page in the Rankings table you will notice
a colored square under the column Page/KW
Mapping. This represents whether your ideal page
is appearing for the search term you are ranking for.
Gray: no page currently mapped to this keyword.
Green: either the correct page is ranking highest
for this keyword, or no pages in the domain rank
for it at all.
Red: a page other than the one you have
assigned is ranking instead for this keyword.
We recommend all pages, where feasible, should
be both mapped to keywords and tagged in
order to make the most of the platform.
Updated
The last time this rank track was updated,
frequency can be toggled between
weekly and daily (see below).
View full ranking results
If you’d like to examine the actual search listings for
a keyword at the time its rank track was last
updated, clicking the View button on any row
pops up a window with the SERP for that keyword
on that day (based on your currently selected
ranking configuration). Universal search results are
mixed in with the other results, and flagged with an
appropriate icon (see Universal Search, p.32)
Weekly/daily rank check button
Rank checking in Linkdex can be performed
daily or weekly, and clicking this button lets you
toggle the frequency for individual keywords:
Weekly rank checking
Daily rank checking
Some keywords will fluctuate frequently, so you
won’t be able to see the full picture unless you
track these keywords daily. In an ideal world all of
your keywords would have daily checks enabled,
however, dependent on budget we recommend
you use only daily checks for your most important
keywords and for those that fluctuate the most.
As with all aspects of digital marketing we
recommend testing different configurations to suit
your needs. Your Account Manager will be able to
advise you on the best settings for your project.
Edit and delete buttons
The Edit button performs a couple of
functions; it provides another location from which
you can add or remove tags, and more importantly,
lets you enter a URL for page mapping the
keyword (see Page Mapping, p.34). One thing
you can’t edit is the text of the keyword itself. If you
want to replace a keyword, you’ll have to delete it
and create a new one.
Clicking the Trash button deletes the keyword
from your project, and Linkdex will stop rank
checking it.
Tip: After the initial rank check, review which
pages are ranking for a keyword and which ones
are not. This will help you determine which
pages you think should actually be ranking and
thus which pages to map to which keywords.
Tip: To simplify things, you can switch some of
these columns off from the Display Options
button in the toolbar. If you’re not seeing
all the columns described, check here to see if
they’re currently switched off for you.
Tip: Remember that each rank check uses one
rank checking credit, so budget carefully; rank
checking all your keywords daily will give you
up-to-date data across the board, but you’ll
start to burn through credits at an alarming rate.
Tip: Tagging keywords comprehensively
lets you review them in groups quickly and
efficiently (see Working With Tags, p.10).
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Left Panel
Organic visibility
The links here let you jump between
the various pages of the section.
Domains
This area provides a list of your competitors’
domains, with your own domain at the top, and
flagged with the icon. Adding a domain to
a project allows you to see how that site is ranking
for your keywords, analyze their backlinks in the
Link Data section (if that option is selected), crawl
their content and more.
You can toggle up to 10 domains on or off
(including your own). Doing so modifies the
Keyword Rankings table in the main panel, such
that when multiple domains are selected, a
separate column is generated for each domain,
with Rank Change and Universal Search data
stacked one above the other in each row, giving
you a quick side-by-side comparison. The Value
Summary Area (See p.38) will also change,
presenting a wider array of information.
Individual domains can be deleted from here by
simply clicking the adjacent Trash button.
Track domain
This button activates the Domain Rank Tracking
& Link Analysis window, where you can add new
domains to track (a competitor’s domain, or
another one of your own). Ideally you should aim
to be tracking about 10 of your top competitors
If you also want to be able to see backlink data
and timeline this domain in the Link Data section
(see p.77), select the Link Analysis option and
specify the timeline interval. Adding link analysis
to domains requires index credits (see p.2)
Some larger domains may be too big for link
analysis but they can still be rank tracked.
If you’re unsure who your competitors actually
are, you can use the Competitor Detective Pro
widget from the Dashboard section (see p.136).
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Assuming you’re tracking enough keywords
(around 300 is a good start, but 100 will do),
Competitor Detective Pro will identify the sites
that consistently rank highest based on these
keywords. See the Quick Start guide for
more (see p.6).
Please note that when you initially add a
Domain either to a current or new project,
you will need to allow 24-48 hours for it to be
indexed, depending on the domain’s size.
Track folder/path
You can also track a specific folder or path
within any currently tracked domain from
here. Select the domain from the drop-down
list and add the relevant path. For example, to
track only our blog, we would select www.
Linkdex.com and add the path as /blog/.
Tags
This area lets you filter the main panel by tag,
for a more detailed overview of how this works,
and of using tags in general, see p.9.
Manage tags
This button opens the Manage Tags window,
where you can add, delete, or edit tags,
as well as get an overview of all of your
tags in use throughout your project and
which kinds of assets they’re applied to.
Manage CTR
If you want to examine the difference in CTR
between generic keywords (‘leather shoes’,
for example), and brand-specific keywords
(‘Nike shoes’, or any keyword that generates a
brand or company entry), Linkdex provides you
with two very usable generic CTR models—
Brand, and Non-Brand. For most users these
settings are more than enough. But if you
have CTR curve weightings of your own that
you’d like to use, you can add them here.
Editing the click-through rates. The default Non-
Brand CTR is a comparatively shallow curve
with the top 3 ranking positions accounting
for roughly two thirds of the potential clicks.
For brand or product specific searches this
figure could be as high as 90% or more.
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Clicking the Manage CTR button opens up the
CTR Configurations window, where you can edit
or examine the default click-through curves (by
clicking the button) or add your own.
This window also gives you a breakdown of how
many of your keywords are currently assigned to
which CTR configuration, and the total associated
value of those keywords. It also shows the clickthrough
rate as a percentage for just the #1 ranking
position, as well as combined totals for the top 3
ranking positions, and top 10 ranking positions.
To create a new CTR click Add New CTR
Configuration at the bottom of the window.
Here you can add in click through percentage
values for the top 30 ranking positions and
assign the curve a name. Clicking the Adjust
Weightings To Add Up To 100% button scales
your figures up or down to so that they add
up to exactly 100% if they don’t already.
Once your custom CTR curve is saved, it’ll appear
in the CTR Configurations window and can be
applied from the Set CTR sub-menu under the
Action button in the toolbar (see p.39).
Value Summary Area
Scroll to the bottom of the Keyword Rankings
table in the main panel and you’ll see a summary,
offering total values for a range of criteria:
Total volume
• Estimated visits/estimated actual traffic:
the sum of the estimated number of visitors
(calculated from the ranking position x monthly
search volume x CTR model %) for each keyword.
• Search volume: the total combined
number of search queries for your (currently
filtered) keywords in the last month.
Total media value
We use the volume of searches and the visits
you have received to generate a ‘value’ score.
If we imagine you had to pay for the natural
search clicks represented by Total Volume, this
is how much it might cost in paid search results.
To calculate this figure, we use an estimated
cost per click based on the average CPC data
reported by Google AdWords, or if you’ve
provided your own custom CPC data (see Add/
Update keyword, opposite), we use that instead.
Potential media value
The amount it would cost according
to the estimated cost-per-click (or any
CPC values uploaded by you) to buy the
amount of traffic equivalent to that given
by a #1 ranking for every keyword.
Potential organic clicks
The estimated number of clicks that would
be achieved from being the #1 ranking
for all of your tracked keywords.
Comparing value
against competitors
Once you toggle on another domain to compare
your rankings (see p.36), the Value Summary will
expand to present more data. In addition to volume
and value for you and your competitors, you will
be able to analyze estimated click volumes.
Site click volume
An estimate of the total searches you and
other domains might get at each position.
Site click share
This is the number of clicks estimated in Site
Click Volume as a percentage of Total Volume.
Media value
If you had to pay for the natural search clicks
represented by Site Click Volume, this is
what it might cost in equivalent paid media
fees such as Google AdWords. We calculate
this using either our own estimated cost per
click values or those supplied by you.
Estimated revenue
This item appears if you have a single tag selected
in the left panel which has conversion and sale/
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lead values set (see Manage Tags, p.37), and
show the estimated value of the tagged keywords
based on these values, along with the current
rank, CPC and CTR values assigned to each.
Potential media value achieved
The amount of value a site is obtaining
from all keywords divided by its potential
value if it ranked #1 for every term.
Potential organic clicks achieved
The estimated percentage of the potential
organic clicks being achieved from your current
ranking for all your tracked keywords.
Toolbar
Action button
As with other Linkdex sections, the Action button
contains some of the most useful functions,
Some of these functions are already accessible
in the buttons on the main panel, but can also be
found here for performing in bulk (by selecting
all from the selection box in the table’s header
bar), or on multiple individually selected items.
Add/update keyword
Presents four different approaches for
adding keywords to your project:
• Add single keyword: a small pop-up window
where you can type in a new keyword,
tag it, and assign a mapped page.
• Add multiple keywords: lets you type or
paste in up to 100 keywords, separated by
line breaks, and apply tags to all of them.
• Bulk upload/update keywords: from here
you can upload and update keywords, search
volumes, CPCs, tags and mapped pages in CSV
format. You might find it useful to export your
keywords first to give you a good format for
editing your data. Once uploaded, Linkdex displays
the first 10 rows so you match the column header
for each column of new data. Existing keywords
will be updated with the new data, and new
keywords will be added to your project.
To remove a keyword, tag or mapped
page, insert a ‘-’ immediately before it
(e.g. -holidays to remove the tag holiday).
• Upload historical rankings: allows you to
easily upload historical rankings (for example,
archival ranking history from another platform)
for keywords using a fixed format CSV. Further
details of how to set this file up, along with
a template are available from the upload page
that appears when this option is selected. Upon
encountering duplicate keywords between your
current and uploaded data, Linkdex will merge
the two, adding the archival rankings but retaining
current CTR, tag, and other fields. It’s worth
The expanded view of the Value Summary with multiple domains under comparison.
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noting that when supplying this data, the date
should be the column header and in UK format
YYYY-MM-DD, otherwise you’ll run into problems
Update mapped page
Assigns a mapped page for all currently selected
keywords (see Page Mapping, p.34).
Delete
Permanently deletes all currently
selected items from your project.
Add tag
Apply any of your existing tags to
the currently selected items.
Remove tag
This option deletes the tag selected from
individual or multiple selected keywords.
Confusingly, instead of giving you a subset
of tags currently applied to your selected
keywords, it presents the full list of your
tags whether they’re applied or not.
Add new tag
For creating a new tag and simultaneously
applying it to multiple selected items.
Remove all tags
Removes all tags from the
currently selected items.
Set CTR
Here you can assign one of your
pre-defined click through rates to the
selected items (see CTR, p.33).
Track daily/track weekly
These options perform the same function as
toggling the weekly/daily rank check button
(see p.35), with the added bonus of being
able to affect multiple selected items.
Export
There are three options here for exporting
your project data to other formats. In all three
cases, you can select between Excel and CSV
format, and whether to export data for your full
keyword list, or just those items selected. Once
exported, files will be available for download
from the Reports section (see p.18).
• Export keyword rankings: all the data shown in
the Keyword Rankings table for all your tracked
domains transposed into a spreadsheet.
• Export keywords: all of your keywords, along
with their page mapping, ranking configuration,
rank check frequency and other settings.
Useful for bulk editing and then re-uploading
in order to update or add new keywords (see
bulk upload/update keywords, p.39).
• Export ranking history: historical keyword
rankings for all tracked domains and ranking
configurations. Keywords tracked weekly
will only receive a value on every 7th day.
US users, when uploading historical
rankings, you can change the
date format in your spreadsheet
from Dates > Format Cell, Select
the YYYY-MM-DD option shown.
Once changed and saved, if the
file is opened again it will revert
back to US format, so you’ll need
to perform this again if you revisit
your file before uploading.
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Filter button
The filter drop-down might look complex,
but it basically allows you some easy options
for filtering the ranking data against a useful
range of criteria. If you have multiple domains
selected, most of these options will be hidden.
Date
Select a date from the drop-down calendar
and the table will display archived ranking
data up to and including that day.
Search vol/CPC
• Missing: shows only keywords we don’t
currently have CPC or search volume data for.
• Available: shows the opposite; only the keywords
for which we have these values (either from our
own data or custom values you’ve provided).
If under Project Settings > Keywords (see p.15)
either the Default in Preference to Custom or
Custom in Preference to Default search volume
and CPC data options are selected, two more
options become available under this filter:
• Default data: shows only the keywords using
the default Linkdex search volume/CPC data.
• Custom data: shows only the keywords using
your custom search volume/CPC data.
Rankings from
Only want to see keywords that are ranking
from 1 to 10? From 3 to 7? You can select
your range of rank positions here and
the table will update accordingly.
Search volume from
As with rankings, above: select the
range of monthly searches you’d like the
table to display the keywords for.
Universal results
Modifies the table to display only keywords
ranking for the selected universal search results.
A drop-down menu lets you further tweak
this to display My Rankings (only results from
your own domains), Other Rankings (only
results from your competitors’ domains), or
Any Rankings (the whole lot). The Not Applied
option effectively switches this filter off.
Page/KW mapping state
Filter to show only mapped pages, unmapped
pages, or pages where there is a mapping
conflict (i.e. the mapped page is not the
page currently ranking, see p.34)
URL filters
A string of drop-downs lets you filter ranking
or mapped pages whose URLs contain the
text entered in the field on the far right. Hit the
Return key after typing to apply the filter and
the X next to the text field to clear it. Other
modifiers include Not Containing, Exact, and
Page Group (see Page Groups, p.19)
CTR configurations
Displays only keywords with the selected
CTR configuration applied.
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Display options button
The options here are for editing the
chart (see p.44) and choosing which
data is displayed in the table.
Chart time period
Choose the time span displayed on the chart,
incrementally selectable from the most recent 30
days right back to the project start date. You can
also zoom in and out of the chart itself for a more
detailed view of a certain period (see p.44).
Chart rankings
Lets you hone in on the rank positions
covered by the chart, from rank 1-10 to
1-100 in 10-position increments.
Show
Some options here for toggling columns
on the table. Estimated Traffic, CPC, Tags,
and CTR can all be switched on or off.
Show completed tasks for pages
Filters completed task annotations (see p.105)
by which page group they’re in; useful if
you’re looking at how completed work on
a content cluster has affected rankings.
Ranking configurations
Ranking configurations let you choose specific
arrangements of search engine, location, language
and keyword tag groups for which to display and
track ranking data. It controls which rank checks
are performed and also which results are displayed.
You might choose to track rankings only in Beijing,
for example, or a certain ZIP code for New York.
Choose the engines and (with Google) locations
that best suit the market for your website.
It’s worth noting that
running multiple ranking
configurations simultaneously
uses multiple credits. If
you were rank tracking
100 keywords weekly with
one config, it would burn
through 100 keyword
credits every week. The same keywords
tracked through 3 different configs at the same
time would eat up 300 credits per week.
Measuring changes in geo-rankings
You can switch on multiple ranking configurations
at the same time to analyze the differences in
ranking between two or more locations. As with
normal rank tracking changes you can observe
these rankings develop over time and see whether
or not they include universal search results.
To see which of your ranking configurations is
currently in use, look to the bottom-left of the main
panel table. You can also hover over the
Spanner icon in the top-right of the toolbar.
How to set up ranking configurations
To set up ranking configurations, select New
Configuration and complete the simple
form in the Rank-Tracking Set-Up window—
select the country and search engine you’d
like to restrict your tracking to, If Google is
chosen, you can also tick the Mobile box to
restrict tracking to mobile searches only.
The Language selection box will update itself
to the main language spoken in your selected
country. For countries where multiple languages
are spoken (French and English in Canada, for
example) you can switch off those you’re not
interested in. If you select multiple languages, a
separate configuration will be made for each.
If search engine is set to Google, the Add Place
field is shown, wherein you can enter a city,
town or ZIP/postal code to track rankings in that
location. Make sure you’ve selected the correct
country so the system knows the difference (for
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example, between Boston,
UK and Boston, USA).
If the Add Place option is
used, a new box will appear
immediately below—Local
Search Volume Factor—
search volume and CPC
data is calculated by
country, so this box lets
you obtain more realistic
values by entering an
estimated population
percentage for the chosen
area. For example, if
your ranking config is
restricted to New York
City, you could enter a value like 2.6% (based
on a quick Google search) here to get more
appropriate search volume and CPC values.
If you’d like to restrict this particular configuration
to only track specific keyword groups, tap the
Edit button under Tags and enter the tags you’d
like to use.
Finally, you can give your new configuration a
snappy name so that you know what it is later on.
Clicking the Add button adds your new
configuration to the Selections list on the right.
You can add as many configurations as you like.
When you’re done, click Save selection and close.
Your new configurations now appear in a list
when clicking the Ranking Configurations
button. If you have a lot of configurations you
can filter them down to the ones you’re looking
for by typing a portion of their name into the
search field. A yellow tag Icon to the right of
each config can be hovered over to indicate
any tags they’re restricted to, and a Play/
Geo-rankings
Geo-ranking data is an
innovation to the Linkdex
platform. We allow users to
track rankings for any number
of keyword searches in any
location in the world, whether
this is by city, town or ZIP/
postal code. Geo-rankings
can be tracked in the Rankings
section, along with your
other rank tracking data.
Why is this important?
67% of the time, when you rank
in the top 30 for a keyword in
one location you will not rank
for that keyword across all
other locations. We compiled
an industry white paper (US
version: linkdex.com/wpcontent/
uploads/2014/03/
geo-ranking-whitepaper-usfrom-
linkdex.pdf, UK version:
linkdex.com/wp-content/
uploads/2014/03/geo-rankingwhitepaper-
uk-from-linkdex1.
pdf) showing that out of 2,000
keyword phrases tracked
across 10 locations, not one
had a consistent rank in
SERPs. Also, when the location
was not set, the average
keyword ranking deviated by
4 positions compared to the
location specific ranking.
Tip: Even if your ranking configuration is
restricted to only tracking certain tag groups,
all of your keywords will display in the table
whether they’re currently being tracked
or not. Look to the Updated column and
you’ll notice older dates on any keywords
not covered by the current config.
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Pause icon shows whether this configuration
is presently being actively tracked or not.
Switch the visibility of your configurations
on and off with the tick boxes and hit
Apply to update the table view.
The Edit Configurations option opens a window
showing you all of your current configurations and
their criteria. From here, you can delete any you no
longer need with the Trash button, or perform
some basic edits (change tags, update name and
set as the default configuration) with the Edit
button. You can also Pause any configs you don’t
need right now, and Restart any paused ones you
do need.
Chart
The Rankings chart is a powerful reporting asset,
showing your ranking performance (between 1 and
up to 100) over time. Up to 10 keywords can be
selected to appear by toggling their Chart
button (see p.32). To quickly clear your
selection, click the chart button in the table’s
header row.
To toggle the chart itself on or off click the Show/
Hide Chart button in the toolbar.
Ordinarily, it would be difficult to measure any
direct correlation between your actions and any
associated change in ranking performance. Linkdex
annotates tasks and content published onto the
chart as small triangles at the date on which they
were completed. Task details can be viewed by
hovering the pointer over these triangles, and
you can see any effect this task may have had on
rank position over the following days and weeks.
Moving your mouse pointer from left to right
across the chart, you’ll see a label showing the
rank for every selected keyword at that particular
date. To zoom in and see a stretch of time in more
detail, grab the handles at either end at the bottom
of the chart and drag across to the points you’d like
the display to start and end. You can then drag the
scrollbar left and right to move through the chart,
or adjust the handles again to zoom back out.
The chart’s time period (from 30 days upwards)
and scale of rank covered (from 1-10 to 1-100), can
Tip: As well as filtering keywords in the table,
task annotations shown in the chart can
also be filtered by page group. This lets you
see where completed tasks for a content
cluster may have made a difference.
The Ranking Configurations menu, showing multiple
configurations with tags and pause/track states.
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both be adjusted to taste from the Display Options
button in the toolbar (see p.42).
Add task
The Add Task button appears throughout
Linkdex, for creating new tasks and assigning
them to yourself or other team members. For
a complete overview of tasks, see p.105.
Search
You can filter keywords containing anything
entered into the Search field. A drop-down
menu to the left lets you modify your search
to either include or exclude the search
term, or to match only the exact phrase.
Page Analysis
Page Analysis is where you can analyze the ranking performance of your web pages
and identify which ones are performing best in terms of their rank position and value.
It can be accessed from the top of the
left panel in the Rankings section.
In order for Page Analysis to function, you need to
have pages ranking for at least one keyword. To use
it to its full potential, you should also be mapping
pages to the keywords you intend them to rank
for. For more on Page Mapping, see p.34.
Main Panel
As with keyword rankings, the main panel
consists of a table, with one row for each page
currently ranking for one of your keywords.
The columns work as follows:
Ranking page
Which specific pages are being shown in the
search results. Clicking the page link opens up a
new browser tab and loads the page in question.
You can also click the icon to view the page’s
detail in the Content 360 section (see p.57).
Ranked keywords
How many of your keywords the page is ranking
for. You can’t actually see what those keywords are
from here, but clicking on the number will bringyou
to the Keyword Rankings page and show just
these keywords. It does this by setting the URL
filters to the page in question. To see your full
keyword list again, click Clear Filters from the Filter
button on the toolbar (see p.41).
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Estimated traffic
How many visits the page has received
(according to Estimated Visits).
Ranked total search volume
The total number of searches being made monthly
for the keywords that the page ranks for.
Ranked total media value
The value of the above estimated traffic,
based on search volume and the CTR
value for the current rank position.
Mapped keywords
The number of keywords this page is currently
mapped to. Clicking the number takes you
to those keywords back on the Keyword
Rankings page (using much the same trick
as with Ranked Keywords (above)).
Total mapped media value
The value of the above mapped keyword rankings
based the current on cost per click and the click
through rate at your current rank position.
Mapped potential media value
The potential value of the mapped pages
if they all managed to rank first for all of
the keywords they’re mapped to.
Left Panel
The left panel on this page appears the same
as on the Keyword Rankings page (see p.36).
However, although present, tags don’t have
any use here, and you won’t be able to select
competitors’ domains for analysis or comparison.
Toolbar
Filter button
The Filter button on this page gives you one
option: Ranking Configuration, which lets you
modify the table based on your different ranking
configurations (see p.42). As with other pages in
Rankings, your current configuration is shown at
the bottom left of the main panel, and at the top
right, if you hover over the Spanner icon.
Add task
The Add Task button appears on almost every
page of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut
for creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Search
You can filter ranked pages with paths containing
anything entered into the Search field. A dropdown
menu to the left lets you modify your
search to either include or exclude the search
term, or to match only the exact phrase.
Group Analysis
The Group Analysis page allows you to analyze your keywords by the tags you have
assigned to them.
The table in the main panel details
the following information:
Tag group
A tag group is basically a bunch of keywords
that have the same tag applied. Because
keywords can have more than one tag, they
can appear in more than one tag group.
Thus, for all intents and purposes, the Tag
Group column is effectively a list of your tags
currently applied within the Rankings section
(tags created in other sections may not be
visible here). Clicking an item here takes
you back to the Keyword Rankings page
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and filters the list down to show only
those entries assigned to this tag.
Keywords
How many keywords have been tagged with
this label, i.e. how many keywords are in
a certain tag group. Clicking the number
takes you to the exact same filtered view
in Keyword Rankings, as above.
Estimated traffic
The number of visits the pages with this
tag have received in the past month.
Search volume
The total search volume for all
keywords in this tag group.
Media value
The corresponding media value of the above
searches, based on the current cost per click and
the click through rate at your current rank position.
Avg rank
The average ranking per keyword of
the pages in this tag group.
1-3, 4-10, and 11-20
How many pages have ranked in these
positions for the keywords in this tag group.
Left Panel
Tags
Since we already have a discrete row for each
tag group in the main panel, it may seem as if
all you’re doing by selecting a tag is switching
all the other rows off. However, the tag search
field can be useful if you have many pages
of data to sort through here, especially since
there’s no Search field in the toolbar.
Toolbar
Filter button
As with the Page Analysis page, the Filter
button here gives you one option: Ranking
Configuration. Your current configuration is
shown at the bottom left of the main panel,
and at the top right, if you hover over the
Spanner icon.
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Add task
The Add Task button gives you a quick shortcut
for creating new tasks and assigning them
to yourself or other team members. For a
complete overview of tasks, see p.105.
Share Of Search
Share of Search presents a pie chart showing the proportion of the total search market
that is held by the selected domain(s). At the bottom of the page this data is expanded
upon in tabular form.
Toggling competitors on and off from the
left panel Domains list adds them to the
pie chart and table, showing their share of
the rankings and other statistics based on
your current Ranking configuration.
With a handful of domains selected it can
become tricky to see which labels are
pointing to which segments of the pie, but
hover the mouse pointer over the chart will
reveal the proud owner of each slice.
A Menu button to the top left of the chart
presents the option to print the chart or download
it in a variety of popular image formats (jpeg, png,
pdf or svg).
The table
The table, like other tables within the platform,
can be reordered in ascending or descending
value for any column by clicking their headers.
Domain
All the domains currently selected
from the list on the left panel.
% of [ranking configuration name] Each domain’s total share of search
for all keywords being tracked by the
current ranking configuration.
Top 3 ranking pages
The number of pages each domain has ranking
in the top 3 search results for all keywords being
tracked by the current ranking configuration.
Top 10 ranking pages
The number of pages each domain has ranking
in the top 10 search results for all keywords being
tracked by the current ranking configuration.
Total media value
The total value of the domain’s ranking
pages based the current on cost per click
and the click through rate at their current
rank position for all keywords being tracked
by the current ranking configuration.
Toolbar
Filter button
The Filter button on this page gives you one
option: Ranking Configuration, which modifies
the chart and table based on your different
ranking configurations (see p.42). Your
current configuration is shown at the top right
of the main panel, on this page; no spanner.
Chart
This button just toggles the chart on
and off, in case you need more room
on screen to view the table.
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Add task
This button appears on almost every page of
Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut for creating
new tasks and assigning them to yourself
or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Search
Enter text into the search field to modify the
pie chart and table to display results based
on keywords containing that text. A dropdown
menu to the left lets you modify your
search to either include or exclude the search
term, or to match only the exact phrase.
Forecasting
This page provides traffic, value and conversion forecasts at keyword level, and can
present a model showing how these factors would be affected by improved ranking
performance, as either a static representation of ultimate potential, or a staggered,
incremental view of how reaching this potential might look over time.
You can choose between these two views by
selecting either the Cross Section or Over Time
tabs just above the toolbar. Each view comes in
two flavors—Simple or Advanced forecasting—
which themselves are selectable by tabs from the
small section in the top-left of the main panel.
First we’ll look at the differences between
the Simple and Advanced views in
under the Cross Section tab and then
move on to the Over Time tab.
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Cross Section:
Simple Forecasting
You control the Simple forecast by operating the
two sliders in the top right of the main panel:
Ranking window of selected keywords
Drag the two handles to select the range of
ranking keywords. For example, if you have
keywords currently ranking between 5 and 10
and you’d like to see their potential value at
higher rankings, drag the handles to 5 and 10.
Forecast rankings
Drag this slider to the rank you’d like to see
forecasts for if the keywords (in the range
specified above) were to reach this position.
Next, click the Calculate Forecast button.
The results are shown at keyword level
in a table covering the bottom half of
the main panel, with totals available in
the Summary Area in the top right.
The table, like other tables within the platform,
can be reordered in ascending or descending
value for any column by clicking their headers.
The data presented is based on the current ranking
configuration (see p.42), which you can see in
the bottom left of the main panel, and also by
hovering over the icon in the top right. To
change configurations, hit the Filter button on
the toolbar and select from the drop-down menu.
You can also filter the contents by tag group; select
your tags and options from the left panel (see
Working With Tags, p.9) and click the Calculate
Forecast button again to update the results.
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Keyword
Just that; the keyword currently under scrutiny.
Search volume
The total number of searches per month for this
keyword within the current ranking configuration.
Actual rank
If any of your pages are currently ranking for
this keyword, its position will be shown here.
Forecast rank
The potential rank position used to generate the
forecast, as set by you just now on the Proposed/
Forecasted Rankings for Same Keywords slider.
Visits
Current (Estimated) and Forecast monthly
results for the number of visits this keyword
will generate at the current and proposed
ranks based on its CTR at these ranks.
Media value
Current (Estimated) and Forecast
monthly value totals of the above visits,
based on their cost-per-click.
Conversion value
If you’ve assigned a Conversion Rate and Sale/Lead
Value to the keyword (see Tag Conversion & Value,
p.56), these will be used to calculate current
(Estimated) and Forecast monthly conversion values.
Summary area
The summary area taking up the top-right
portion of the page gives you a quick insight
into the total values across all of your keywords
(based on the current ranking configuration)
for the current and forecast visits, media value,
and conversions data shown on the table,
An up/down/neutral status icon to the far
right shows you the difference between
you current and potential rank positions.
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Cross Section:
Advanced Forecasting
Advanced Forecasting takes a different approach
from Simple Forecasting in that takes into
account how likely it is for a rank to be achieved.
Jumping from ranking position 30 to position
5, for example, may be substantially easier
than moving from 5 to 1. It attempts to provide
more realistic results by applying a model
when generating forecasts. This model can be
customized if needed, and offers three scenarios:
Low, Medium, and High, with Low offering fairly
conservative expectations of achievable rank
(the difference between your actual rank and
forecast rank will be smaller), and High offering
a best-case scenario given your current rank
position (the forecast rank will be higher).
Select the Low, Medium or High master scenario
from the drop-down menu in the top left of the
main panel and click Calculate Forecast. The table
will populate with the same estimated and forecast
Visits, Media Value and Conversion Value columns
as in simple mode, based on the current scenario.
You’ll notice that the Forecast Rank column
now presents three possible outcomes, each
reflecting potential rank based on the High,
Medium or Low scenario. Presently the other
forecast values are all taking their cues from the
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master scenario, but you can manually override
this for each keyword by setting it from the
Keyword Scenario drop-down. As you move
between these settings the appropriate forecast
rank value will become highlighted and you’ll see
the other forecast values update accordingly. The
Not Set option defers back to master scenario.
Summary area
In advanced mode, the summary area values
will update after Calculate Forecast has
been clicked, showing values based on the
master scenario set in the Forecasting tab. If
you’ve manually set the scenario for individual
keywords on the table these settings won’t
be reflected in the summary calculations.
Over Time:
Simple Forecasting
The Over Time tab gives another layer of
insight to your forecasts, allowing you to set
a time span to achieve your desired rank and
see how that might play out across various
intervals throughout the life of the project.
The main controls are the same sliders
as for the Simple Cross Section Forecast
and work in exactly the same way, with
the addition of the following controls:
Date targeted
Select the number of months and weeks
you’d like to see forecast data for going
forward. The table generated will display
a column for each interval, along with its
date (from the present day onwards).
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Metric
It would be cumbersome to attempt to
display forecasts for media value, conversions
and visits across a range of dates all on the
same table, so to simplify things, in Over
Time mode, only one of these metrics is
shown at a time. You can use the menu
here to select which one the table displays.
The table itself has the familiar Keyword,
Search Volume, Actual Ranks and Forecast
Rank columns, with remainder taken up with
the selected number of date increments
(the next 12 months, or 5 weeks, or
whatever you’ve chosen).
With each consecutive date, you’ll see the value
of the selected metric increase based on our
estimation of how close to your target rank
you’ll be by that point in time. From the point at
which this rank is achieved onwards there will be
no change and the Keyword row will be blockcolored
in green for an instant at-a-glance guide
to how soon you’re likely to reach this goal.
Over Time:
Advanced Forecasting
Advanced Forecasting has all the same
scenario controls and functionality that it has
in the Cross Section mode. You can set a
Low, Medium or High master scenario and
override this manually for individual keywords
to see on-the-fly updates in the table.
The table behaves as above, showing the
projected impact of an incrementally
improving rank upon the selected
metric over the selected time span.
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Time span selection is as follows:
Date targeted
Use the pop-out calendar to set a specific
end date for the forecast.
Date display mode
Select Months or Weeks to break the table
down into the appropriate intervals.
Toolbar
Action button
The Action button contains the following
options, the Export option is applicable
to all four view variations, while the other
three affect the low/medium/high scenarios
available in the Advanced view:
Manage model
This opens the Manage the Forecast Model
window where you can select between our
default model for calculating low, medium,
and high expectation scenarios, or provide
your own. With Linkdex Default selected
you’ll be able to see the default settings for
Target Rank in each scenario. If you wish
to edit these values, select Custom.
Set keyword scenario
From here you can manually override the
master scenario in bulk for any keywords in
the table with their selection box ticked.
Clear keyword scenarios
This clears manual scenario overrides
on any selected keywords.
Export
Gives you the option to export the current
forecast in Excel or CSV format. Once exported,
the spreadsheet will be available to download
from the Reports area (see p.18)
Filter button
As mentioned, the Filter button gives you
the option to switch to a different ranking
configuration. Once you’ve set it, you’ll
need to click the Calculate Forecast
button again to update the results.
Add task
The Add Task button gives you a quick
shortcut for creating new tasks and assigning
them to yourself or other team members. For
a complete overview of tasks, see p.105.
Search
You can filter the table down to display
keywords containing text entered into the
Search field. A drop-down menu to the left
lets you modify your search to either include
or exclude the search term, or to match only
the exact phrase. Again, you’ll need to click the
Calculate Forecast button to see any changes.
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Using Forecasting to
its full potential
As powerful a tool as
Forecasting is, it’s only as
good as the information
you can feed it. Before you
start to use this feature we
recommend spending some
time to ensure your data
is as robust as possible.
To save you manually
entering masses of data
directly into Linkdex, we’ve
provided a downloadable
spreadsheet template, which
you can grab from here:
http://www.Linkdex.com/
wp-content/uploads/2014/07/
keywordimporttemplate.csv
The template contains some
sample entries which you can
replace with your own data.
For forecasting purposes, the
main inputs are as follows:
Keyword
Add the keywords you want
traffic and forecasting data for
from sources like your Analytics
history and AdWords data,
going back as far as you can,
ideally 12 months or more. Any
duplicates will be automatically
merged with your existing
keywords without losing any
ranking data. Other fields will
be updated with the new data.
Country search volume/CPC
For higher data accuracy, use
standard keyword planner
data (see p.33) or add
custom search volume/CPC
data based on your AdWords
campaigns and other sources.
Tags
The better your tag taxonomy
the better the analysis we can
provide. In addition to the usual
broad keyword groups (‘credit
cards’, for example), think
about using classifications
like ‘brand’, ‘high conversion’,
‘informational’, and ‘long tail’.
You can add as many extra
numbered tag columns to the
spreadsheet as you need.
CTR config
Linkdex offers default ‘nonbrand’
and ‘brand’ keyword
click-though by position
formulas. If you have CTR
models of your own you
can add these from Manage
CTR in the Rankings section
(see p.37) and apply them
at keyword level here.
Tag conversion & value
Tags can have a conversion
rate (%) and monetary (sale/
lead) value assigned. Keywords
with tags that have this data
will be able to have conversion
forecasts calculated. The
template doesn’t include a field
for these metrics, but you them
by clicking the Edit button
for each tag from Manage Tags
in Rankings.
Mapped page
Add the page you think
should rank for individual
keywords. This simple piece
of information drives lots
of other insights offered
by the platform, such as
a page’s potential value,
and warnings when the
wrong page is ranking.
Once you’re done, you can
upload the data via the Bulk
Upload/Update Keywords
option under the Action
button in the toolbar of the
main Keyword Rankings
page (see p.39). If there
are any new keywords in
the list we’ll then get the
ranking data in 3-4 hours.
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CONTENT 360
Content 360 is designed to help you make informed and actionable
decisions about websites and specific pages. It allows you to crawl
domains with a view to comparing competitor sites for structure,
content and social shares, while identifying and fixing errors, and
optimizing content on your own site.
Content 360 offers unparalleled insights into
the performance of your campaigns’ content,
providing one central location where you can
access all the data needed to measure the
success of your content, whether across one
page, a group of pages or an entire website.
Content 360 can answer the following questions
about your own website and your competitors’:
Content performance
• Which content performs the best in terms of
internal links, channel traffic, rankings, backlinks,
social shares, and content engagement?
• How much content (content depth)
do you have on a specific topic, and
how does that content perform?
• What are the analytic summaries for pages
you want to make optimization decisions on?
(For example, you may not want to redirect
a page if it’s heavily used for paid search).
Content strategy
• What content do other websites and individuals
on social media like to link to and share?
• How much content (content depth) do
you have on a specific topic, and is there
an opportunity to create more?
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Architectural/technical
• Is your website held back by technical
issues such as duplicate titles, 404’s
and broken links that need fixing?
• Do the pages you’re trying to rank have a
sufficient number of internal links and optimal
link anchors to facilitate a high ranking
position for the targeted keywords?
Offsite SEO
• Are pages you’d like to perform better being
shared and linked to as much as equivalent
pages on the same topic for your competitors?
• Which authors write content on a specific topic
and how well is their content linked to and shared?
Main Panel
First things first; in order for Content 360 to
show you anything useful in the main panel,
you need to initiate a crawl (see p.61)
As with other tables across the platform, this one
can be sorted by ascending or descending value
for any column by clicking the column headers.
Selection box
A small check box at the far left of the table
lets you select multiple rows for performing
actions on. You can select all by clicking
the one at the top, in the Header row.
Page URL/title
This column displays all the pages of your
website found by the crawl, with their full path
and Page Title. Clicking the path link opens the
actual web page in a new browser tab. Any new
pages not found on a previous crawl will be
indicated with the label, and any items
with an author associated with it will display the
label.
Issues
The number of technical and content issues
for the given page. These can be viewed in
detail over on the right panel (see p.67)
Tier
Linkdex analyzes each page based on the
number of internal and external links, the URL
path and other factors and forms an idea about
the hierarchy of each page, assigning it a tier,
with Tier 1 being the home page (or the start
page of the crawl if different from the home
page, see p.63), Tier 2 being any pages within
one click of the Tier 1 page and so on. If a page’s
tier is lower or higher than you’d expect, check
the internal links pointing to the page for some
clues about what might be going wrong.
Int. links
The number of internal links from other
pages in your website to this page.
Search engines are interested in those pages
on your website that have the most and least
internal links as this count gives an indication
of a page’s relative importance. They also take
a look at the anchor text that forms the link as
it gives some context to the pages the links are
pointing to. This makes internal link volume and
anchor text important ranking factors of a page.
Tip: Sorting by internal links, external links,
and shares can tell you a lot about why one
website’s pages are performing better than
another. If you discover an insight (such as
an underperforming page having too few
internal links, for example), create a task so
that the problem gets some attention.
Tip: To use Content 360 to its full potential
you’ll need to have Google Analytics set up
for your domain. It’s a quick, simple process
(see p.16) and without it, a large portion of
the data listed below will not be available to
you. If you use other analytics packages such
as Omniture, these can also be set up, with a
little work. Get in touch with your dedicated
Account Manager for more advice on this.
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Internal links and anchor text details are viewable
in more detail over on the right panel (see p.66)
Out. links
The number of links from this page to other pages
within the site (or part of site) being crawled.
Ext. links
The number of external backlinks this
page has from other pages outside the
site (or part of site) being crawled.
Links from other websites can help your
content to rank higher. Knowing which
content has received links and which hasn’t
is an important site optimization metric.
The anchor text of links pointing at your pages is
also important. ‘Natural’ link profiles, consisting of
a diverse mix of relevant, authoritative backlinks
are more desirable and more effective.
External links and anchor text details are viewable
in more detail over on the right panel (see p.66)
Social media statistics
The next 6 columns show you the
total number of social media events
relating to each page of your site.
Twitter tweets Google +1s
Facebook shares Facebook likes
LinkedIn shares Pinterest pins
At present, sharing metrics are presented as a
total, so there’s no way to compare the figures
with previous data. The best way to examine these
over time is to export the data (see Action, below),
and compare it in the resulting spreadsheets.
Above: The main panel table for one of your competitors in Content 360. The page currently being
viewed is denoted by a pale blue tint. The Organic Visits column doesn’t show for competitors.
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Org. visits
The number of visits each page has received from
organic search results. This column only appears
if Analytics has been integrated (see p.16).
Toolbar
In Content 360 users can see when the last
time their social share metrics and crawl
was last updated, as well as the total number
of pages found for the specific crawl.
Action
Add tag
Adds a previously created (within Content 360)
tag from the sub-menu to any selected pages.
Add new tag
Create a new tag and assign it
to the selected pages.
Remove tag
From the sub-menu, select individual tag you’d
like to remove from the selected pages.
Export
Export the data set for the
domain and crawl you’re
currently viewing. You can
choose between Excel or
CSV format spreadsheets.
Once exported, the file can be
found in the Report section
for download (see p.18).
Filter
Crawl
Here you can jump between
data gathered from any
previous crawl for an idea of
how your site architecture and
has developed over time.
Standard filter
This drop-down lets you filter pages by
individual content issues (duplicate content,
missing headers and so on) for resolving or
assigning as a task to other team members
(see Resolving Content Issues box, p.67)
At the bottom of the drop-down there are also
options for filtering pages which currently rank
in the top 3, 10, or 20 for any of your keywords.
Show new discoveries since
Shows only new pages found since the crawl
preceding the one selected from the drop-down.
Pages with author
Displays pages where an author has be
identified, either by their Google+ profile or the
rel=”author” attribute. Authors will be listed in
the right panel, along with buttons to add them
to your contacts. Perhaps they can write for
you or be part of your outreach campaigns.
Right: Content 360’s Standard Filter enables you to view
only pages with specific problems. Notice that the page
header updates to represent the current filtering option.
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Text detection not set
If the crawl is set up with a string to detect,
this will list any pages where the string was
not found. It’s used mainly to detect pages
where the Analytics tracking code is missing.
Page group
Page groups are set in Project Settings > Page
Groups (see p.19).And can be used to
collate pages together if they share common
specified words as part of their URL. Once
saved, a new page group will be available as
a filtering option from this drop down list.
Display options
Show suppressed issues
Selecting this reveals any potential issues that have
previously been dismissed from the right panel
Display columns
A simple drop-down menu here lets you
switch the table to display only the social
columns (External Links, Social Media Shares,
and Original Visits), only the technical
columns (Issues, Tier, Internal Links, Out
Links and Original Visits), or All columns.
Recrawl now
If a website in your list of domains hasn’t
been crawled we display a circular icon
next to it in the left panel. Click the circle
and enter the required information in the
Request New Crawl panel (see p.63 for
the full run-down on requesting a crawl).
If a domain has already been crawled you can
re-crawl it by clicking the Recrawl Now
button, which brings up the same panel. Crawls
are completed by manual requests, we strongly
recommend regular crawls for your domains to
monitor technical issues and to provide historical
data should you need it at a later date.
You can also crawl your competitors’ sites to
find how much content they have, the depth
of content they have for specific keywords and
where their performing content is. If you need
to add more domains you can do this from the
Link Data section, or from Rankings (ensuring the
Link Analysis option is checked (see p.36).
Crawls can take around 24-hours to undertake,
or longer, depending on the size of the domain.
Refresh the share counts
Share data can change rapidly for new pages
you’re following. This button updates just the
share counts without having to perform a
completely new crawl. As with crawls, this can’t
be automated, so you’ll have to do it manually.
Add task
Clicking this button will pull up a task creation
window. If the task is related to a content issue,
you can also add it via the Potential Issues section
of the right panel (see p.67), where the task
pop-up will be automatically populated with the
relevant details. For more on tasks, see p.105.
Search
You can filter keywords containing anything
entered into the search field. In addition
to standard search functions, Content 360
introduces some unique operators of its own.
For a full run-down, see the box above.
Tip: Make sure you name your recrawls
effectively, especially if you don’t change
any of the crawl settings, otherwise they
will default to the name of the last crawl
and you’ll have a bunch of crawls with
the exact same name to choose from.
Tip: One way to improve your content strategy
is to take inspiration from content that has
already resonated with your audience. To
benchmark the content for each domain in
the project on a specific topic set your search
filters to focus in on that topic (for example,
intitle:”car insurance” or infolder:”carinsurance”
and then jump between each
of the domains in the left navigation.
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Left Panel
Domains
This area provides a list of your competitors’
domains (taken from the Link Data section,
or from domains added within the Rankings
section where the Link Analysis option has been
selected, see p.36), with your own domain at
the top (flagged with the icon).
Unlike the Rankings section, you can only
view one domain at a time here, simply click
on the domain you’d like to examine and the
main panel with switch to displaying its crawled
site data.
Crawl and recrawl domain settings
For Content 360 to do anything, the first thing you
need to do is perform a crawl. Uncrawled sites in
your Domains list will have a circular arrow
icon next to them, which you can click to initiate
a crawl of that domain.
Recrawls are not automated or performed over
set intervals. Instead, you’ll need to manually
perform a crawl every time you’d like updated
data. The good news is you can do this as often
as you like without using up any credits.
For the pages found during the crawl, Linkdex
appends data from other sources, including:
• Multi-channel analytics
Tip: Adding editorial domains (blogs, for
example) to your project will give you more
content ideas than other kinds of competitor.
Using operators when
searching your content
Search operators can be used
in Content 360 to hone in on
these specific kinds of content
(if you don’t use an operator
your search will return all
instances of your search term):
• intitle: page title
• indesc: page META description
• inurl: any part of page URL
• indomain: domain
part of page URL
• infolder: path part of page URL
• inheading: H1 tag
• inintanchor: anchor text for
an HREF pointing to another
page within the crawl
• inoutanchor: anchor text
for an HREF pointing to a
page not in the crawl
• inalt: ALT text
• inpage: page BODY
The full list of search
operators can be seen at
any time by clicking the
Information button next to
the search field.
Advanced Searches
Modifiers can also be combined
for even finer tuning of your
search results, and you can
exclude types of content
with the ‘-‘ operator.
Example: intitle:music
-inurl:about will display all your
pages with ‘music’ in their title,
excluding any with the word
‘about’ anywhere in their URL.
Multiple terms can be
combined using logical
operators (“and” & “or” in
lowercase). The ‘and ‘terms will
be evaluated first, followed by
the ‘or’ terms. Parentheses can
also be used to group terms.
Example: intitle:Linkdex
and (inintanchor:home or
inintanchor:top) will search for
pages with “Linkdex” in the title
and with internal anchor text
containing “home” or “top”.
Without the parentheses
in the above example we
get intitle:Linkdex and
inintanchor:home or
inintanchor:top, returning
all pages with “Linkdex” in
the title and “home” in an
internal anchor, or all pages
(regardless of title) with “top”
in an internal anchor.
Search for phrases (with or
without operators) by enclosing
them in double-quotes.
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• Current ranking
performance
• Backlink and share counts
• Internal link counts and
anchor text insights
• Depth of content on
a topical theme
• Technical issues
Chances are you’ll be
working on a small area
of your site at a time.
To see the fruits of your
labor without having
to wait longer than
necessary, you can use the following options
to narrow the crawl parameters down to areas
you’re working on. There is a default 10,000
page limit on any one crawl (although this can
be increased to 20,000 at the discretion of your
Account Manager, any larger than that and you’ll
need to request a Total Crawl, see p.64), so
it’s prudent to be specific when setting one up.
Crawl name
Best practice is to be as descriptive as possible
when naming the crawl. Consider including the
details such as the date, path, which options
are selected, if this crawl was prior to a major
site redesign or modification, and so on.
Crawl start page
Specify where you’d like the crawl to begin, only
pages connected to this page will be indexed.
Crawl path
This option limits the crawl to a specific part of the
site. Any links to parts of the site outside the crawl
path will be ignored and treated as external links
Ignored Paths
This works as an inversion of Crawl Path—
paths listed here (as many as needed)
will be excluded from the crawl.
Ignore Parameters
Lets you exclude specific label parameters
that may form part or a URL. You
could include items such as:
• ItemID
• utm_medium
• _id
• ItemId
• utm_campaign
• utm_source
The crawler will then ignore these parameters
when deciding if it has already crawled a
Tip: Make sure that the crawl start page is
Inside any crawl path and not inside any
ignored paths, otherwise the crawl will fail
Right: The control panel
for requesting a crawl.
It looks like a daunting
array of options, but you
can just use the ones you
need and leave the rest.
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Total Crawl
A Total Crawl can be used for
sites above the page limits
offered by Content 360, with
the ability to examine millions
of pages. The data provided
focuses on technical issues and
is supplied in CSV format for
use by your own data analysts.
Domain verification
Before performing a Total
Crawl we will provide a small
verification file that must
be placed in the root of the
site (e.g. www.domain.com/
linkdex1234567890.txt). This
gives Linkdex the necessary
permissions to access you site’s
data. Then, to begin the crawl,
we will need the following
information from you:
1) Domain
2) Maximum crawl rate
the number of pages we
can request per second. As
a guide, to crawl 1M pages
in a day would be 12 pages
per second (assuming the
pages are returned in <1s,
which is not always the case).
3) Number of pages
how many pages do
you want to crawl?
4) Standard crawl config
these options work in the
same way as the crawl
domain settings in Content
360 (See p.62):
• Start page
• Include path
• Ignore paths
• Ignore params
• User agent (web or
mobile—web is the default)
• Obey robots.txt (Y/N)
• Obey No Follow (Y/N)
• Tracking code string
A Total Crawl outputs
the following data:
Standard Page Report
For every page found:
• Page URL
• Title
• Tier
• Canonical URL
• Excluded by robots.txt (Y/N)
• NoIndex set (Y/N)
Redirects
Does not report intermediate
steps, just the start and end
of any redirect change.
For every redirect found:
• Redirect code (301, 302 etc)
• Start URL
• Destination URL
Failed pages
For every link that failed
to provide a page:
• Failure code (500/404/etc)
• URL
Internal broken links
For every page with broken
links, for every broken link:
• Page URL
• Broken link URL
If there are site-wide broken
links in the navigation, every
single page will be reported.
Canonical
For every page that has
an internal canonical URL
which is not itself:
• Page URL
• Canonical URL
• Status of the canonical
URL Page (200/404/etc)
Raw duplicated titles
For every page with
a duplicate title:
• Title
• Page URL
• Canonical URL
• Canonical URL page title
Managed duplicated titles
For each page with a ‘managed
duplicate’—a canonical URL
that points to another URL
with an identical page title:
• Title
• Canonical URL
• Page URL
Un-managed duplicate title
For each page with an ‘unmanaged
duplicate’ (a duplicated
title with no canonical URL, or
a canonical URL pointing to a
URL with a different page title):
• Page title
• Page URL
• Canonical URL
• Canonical URL page title
Missing titles
For every page with no title:
• Page URL
Missing H1
For every page with no H1 tag:
• Page URL
Missing tracking code
For each page with no tracking
code (i.e. a string) entered
in the crawler config:
• Page URL
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page, preventing it from crawling the same
page multiple times with a different parameter
that makes no difference to the page.
User agent
Choose Google Web Crawler for regular search
results, or Google Mobile Smartphone to see your
crawl from the perspective of mobile phone use.
Tick boxes
By default these will all be switched on,
and in most instances you’ll want to leave
them that way, but in case you don’t, the
following options can be disabled:
• Obey robots.txt and ignore excluded
files/folders: ignores any pages specified
within the site’s robots.txt file.
• Obey NoFollow attributes: treats any links
with the NoFollow attribute as a dead end.
• Check external links: checks the integrity
of any links pointing outside of the site,
or the part of the site being crawled.
• Check images: checks images are not missing
and collects alt text and image size data.
String to detect on each page
Lets you specify a specific URL format string
for the crawler to check if it appears on
each page. Useful for identifying pages with,
for example, missing tracking codes.
Maximum number of pages
Set the maximum number of pages you’d
like the crawl to analyze. By default, your
upper limit is set to 10,000. If you need
more, contact your Account Manager and
ask them for an extended level of crawl.
To crawl sites with hundreds of thousands
of pages you need to perform a Total Crawl,
which currently lives outside of the platform.
See p.64 for instructions on how to do this.
Tags
This area lets you filter the main panel by tag,
for a more detailed overview of how this works,
and of using tags in general, see p.9.
Content 360 uses its own tags, which it
then shares with the Writer’s Desktop
section (see p.71)
Manage tags
Opens the Manage Tags window, where you
can add, delete, or edit tags, as well as get an
overview of all tags in use throughout your
project and which kinds of assets they’re applied
to. This button appears in the majority of Linkdex
sections, for more on tags, see p.9.
Right Panel
Understanding which content is performing is
an important consideration when optimizing
your website. Here, you can see which pages
have links, rankings and/or traffic at page level
and start making decisions on whether to edit
content, build external links, improve internal
link volume or context, or perform technical
housekeeping tasks such as redirecting
pages with 301’s or using rel=canonicals.
The following information will be populated
if Google Analytics is synced with your
Linkdex project (see p.16).
Visits/visitors
Expressed as two numbers with a forward slash
in between, the first number to the left is the
number of visits to the page in the last month,
while the number to the right is the number of
unique visitors to that page. So if one individual
visited you page five times, this would show up
as 5/1. Results are given for direct traffic, and
click-throughs from organic search, referral links,
paid search results, and social media shares.
Tip: Checking external links and
images will slow down a crawl due to
the volume of checks—so consider
switching off if not needed
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Engagement
It’s all very well getting your
pages higher up the search
rankings and getting people
to actually visit your page,
but how many of them stick
around, and for how long?
Bounce rate
Expressed as a percentage,
this shows how many visitors
to the page immediately leave
again (as measured through
Google Analytics). Results are
given for direct traffic, and clickthroughs
from organic search,
referral links, paid search results,
and social media shares.
Average time on page
In minutes and seconds, this is
the average time your visitors
spend on the page. Results
are given for direct traffic, and
click-throughs from organic
search, referral links, paid search
results, and social media shares.
Value
If the page has been assigned
tags with conversion (%) and
Sales/Lead value assigned, the
relative value of this page will
be calculated and available
here, based on direct, organic
search, referral, paid search,
and social share click-through.
Page performance
Top 3, 10 and 20 ranks
The number searches based
on your tracked keywords that
this page is ranking for within
the specified range (top 3, top
10, etc). Clicking the number
will jump you over to the
Rankings section, filtered to
show just those keywords.
Mapped keywords
The total number of keywords
currently mapped to this page.
Mapped & ranked keywords
The mapped keywords this page
is actually ranking for (anywhere
in the top 100 search results).
Mapped & not
ranked keywords
Mapped keywords for which
this page isn’t currently
ranking in the top 100.
Mapped potential
organic clicks
The estimated number of
potential clicks per month
this page will achieve based
on its current rank and CTR
for any mapped keywords.
Mapped potential media value
The potential combined value
of the mapped page for all
the keywords it’s mapped to
based on its current rank for
each keyword, the CTR at that
rank position, and CPC value.
Links & shares
This section basically duplicates
some of the information
from the main panel for the
currently selected page:
Internal, outbound and external
links, and social media shares,
likes, +1s, pins, and so on.
Link relevance
Top internal link anchors
This shows the most
prevalent anchor text for
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links pointing to your pages, along with
the number of occurrences of each.
Top external link anchors
The most prevalent anchor text for external
backlinks pointing to your site. Clicking
one of the numbers will jump you over
to Link Data and display only those sites
linking back to you with this anchor.
Potential issues
This area presents a list of issues specific to
the page currently being viewed, as indicated
by the Issues column in the main panel table.
Some common issues found here include:
• Short body content (under 100 words)
• Short/long page title (below 40/
above 70 characters)
• Short/long page description (below
120/above 160 characters)
• Missing elements (e.g. Title,
Description, H1, H2, H3 and so on)
Resolving content issues
To ensure search engines
are finding your content
and successfully crawling
and ranking it, it’s worth
paying attention to potential
content issues on your
individual pages.
Content 360 identifies any
problems across your site and
lets you filter for specific types
of issue (see Filter, p.60), and
add them as tasks so that the
problem can be addressed later.
The main reason pages
might not be ranked are:
Pages were not available
• 403: Forbidden: shown when
a server blocks access to a
webpage. Both the server
and webpage can be found,
but the page is forbidden and
can’t be viewed by users or
crawled by search engines.
• 404: Not Found: the server
was found but it cannot
retrieve the requested
webpage, possibly because
the page has been moved or
renamed or no longer exists.
Server issues
• 500: Internal Server Error:
a generic error returned
when the server encountered
an unknown problem.
• 503: Service Unavailable:
usually a temporary notice
that the server is overloaded
or down for maintenance.
Broken links
As websites evolve it’s easy to
lose track of where links point
to, and whether those pages still
exist. Fixing broken internal and
external links not only makes
for a better user experience,
it helps search engines find
and rank your content.
Once you’ve crawled your site
under Content 360, check the
Links and Shares section in
the right panel to see Internal
and External broken links.
Pages excluded by
• Robots.txt: pages can be
manually prevented from
being crawled by adding their
URLs to your robots.txt file.
• NoIndex: the NoIndex
metaTag is another signal
to prevent indexing, but
can be implemented on
individual pages instead of the
server-level robots.txt file.
Duplicate content
Your page title appears in
search results and is used as a
ranking factor. Duplicate titles
on multiple pages across a
site are known to cause issues
with rankings and should be
avoided. Linkdex also flags
duplicate headings and page
descriptions, which can also
cause ranking problems.
301 and 302 redirects
If you need to change the
URL of a page, a 301 allows
you to permanently redirect
a user to the new location
and can transfer the page
authority earned from external
links to another page.
A 302 allows you to temporarily
perform the same function
(for example, while working
on a page), while instructing
the search engine to keep
checking the original location
for the updated page.
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• Duplicate elements (e.g. Title,
Description, H1, and so on)
• Internal server errors and pages not available.
• Pages excluded from crawl by either
robots.txt or NoIndex tags
• Broken links
• Redirects and canonical tags
For a full run-down on the implications of
various content issues and how you might
resolve them, see the box on p.67.
Each issue can either be dismissed by hitting the
Trash button, or turned into a task by clicking
the Add Task link. The Task panel will pop up and
already be populated with the page and issue
details.
Authors
Any authors of the selected pages content will be
listed here. You can click the button to add an
author to your contacts list.
Tags
Tags can be used to categorize pages in any
way you see fit; specific tasks that need to be
completed, strategic initiatives (Q1, March, wait
until site relaunch, and so on). You can type
them straight in to the text field here and hit
Return between tags. New tags will appear in
the tag list on the left panel for filtering pages
by tag (see Working With Tags, p.9).
Tagging in Content 360 is carried over into
Writers Desktop, so that content builders
can filter for particular kinds of initiatives.
Notes
Notes can be added here for reminders for yourself
or other team members. Once entered, a note will
appear with the author’s name and date. Notes can
be edited with the button, but not deleted.
More page details
Title
The current page’s Title tag, if it has one.
Description
If present, the page’s meta description:
H1, H2
Any H1 and H2 level headings on the currently
selected page. At the moment Linkdex only logs
H1 and H2 headings (No H3, H4, and beyond).
Images
The full URLs and file names of any
hosted images on the page, complete
with any Alt text, and its size (in bytes).
Image results are included in universal
search results (see p.32). Having
detailed, well named images can increase
the likelihood of appearing in SERPS.
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WRITER’S DESKTOP
Writer’s Desktop is geared towards content optimization, allowing
you deeper analysis of your mapped keywords, keyword rankings and
potential page value at page level. Pages can be reviewed for keyword
usage in title, headings, URL and in page copy.
Writer’s Desktop explores pages on your site which
have been mapped to one or more keywords,
expanding on the simple red/green/gray icon from
the table in the Rankings section (see p.34) to
give you a full overview of your mapped pages.
Keyword mapping is one of the most actionable
philosophies of Linkdex. Do pages exist for your
target keyword? How visible are they? And does
the correct page rank for the correct keyword?
If you’re working on a project where content
needs to be optimized with keywords for
major search engines and has specifications
provided by your search marketing team, you’ll
find Writer’s Desktop an invaluable tool.
Main Panel
As with other tables across the platform,
Writer’s Desktop can be sorted by ascending
or descending value for any column
by clicking the column headers.
Selection box
A small check box at the far left of the table
lets you select multiple rows for performing
actions on. You can select all by clicking
the one at the top, in the Header row.
Tip: When reviewing your pages, we
advise sorting your keywords by either
Search Volume or Mapped Keyword Value
depending on what you are focusing on.
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Page
This column lists all of the pages you current have
any keywords mapped to. Click the page link to
open that page in a new browser tab, or click the
icon to examine it within the Content 360
section (see p.57).
Top 30 ranks
The number of your keywords that the page
currently ranks for within the top 30. Clicking
the number links you over to Rankings and filters
the main panel down to just those keywords.
Search volume
This column doesn’t actually show search volume
in the conventional sense (i.e. the average number
of times a keyword would be searched), but
instead returns the combined Potential Organic
Clicks values (The estimated number of clicks that
would be achieved from being the top ranking for
all of the keywords currently mapped to this page).
Mapped KW’s
The number of keywords currently
mapped to this page. Again,
clicking the number jumps over to
Rankings and filters the main panel
down to just those keywords.
Mapped KW value
This column returns the
combined Potential Media
Value (see p.46) from the
Rankings section for the keywords
currently mapped to this page.
Keyword review button
For keywords that have been
mapped to a URL which has been
crawled by Content 360 (see
Page Mapping, p.34), you’ll
see this button, which opens the Keyword
Review window for the page in question.
This is an incredibly useful tool for examining
exactly what’s going on with your mapped
keywords. The window is comprised of 2 tabs:
Mapped keyword phrases
A compact table which, like other tables
within the platform, can be sorted by any
column by clicking the headers. Left to
right, the features are as follows:
• Mapped keyword phrase: the actual complete
keyword phrases currently mapped to this page.
• Search volume: the Search Volume figure
from the main table, broken down into
values for each keyword phrase.
• Title, URL, H1, Mentions: these columns display
how many times each keyword phrase occurs
in each of these page elements. If the page title,
for example, includes your keyword, a green
rectangle will appear next to it in this column,
with a number 1 in it (assuming it occurs there
Right: The keyword review
window. Sort the columns by
Search Volume and start thinking
about how you can pursue the
keywords at the top of the list.
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just the once). If the same keyword occurs
3 times throughout the page’s body text,
you’ll see a green rectangle in the Mentions
column, this time numbered with a 3. Page
elements where the keyword doesn’t occur
will have a beige rectangle with no number,
indicating potential areas for improvement.
Mapped words
This tab takes the same format as above, but breaks
your keyword phrases down into their individual
component words. Search Volume is replaced with
a Keywords column, which shows you how many
of your keyword phrases each word occurs in.
Dismiss button
If, after reviewing your keywords it seems the
appropriate ones are appearing on the page in
question then you may want to clear the decks
so that you can focus on items still requiring your
attention. Hitting this button makes the page
disappear from view. You can use the Filter
button from the toolbar to show your dismissed
pages (they’ll appear grayed out), and if needed,
you’ll be able to undismiss each by hitting the
same button.
Add task button
If there’s an issue with a page that you aren’t
dealing with right now, you can assign a
task to it. This button opens a task window
in much the same way as the one on the
toolbar, but populates it with enough relevant
details (page URL, any mapped keywords and
so on) to speed up the process a little.
Left Panel
Domains
In Writer’s Desktop, there’s no need for
competitor domains, so this pretty much
just displays the domain of your own
site as specified within the project.
Tags
The content review process in Writer’s
Desktop can be made easier by filtering your
pages with tags. Getting the right tags onto
the right keyword-mapped pages involves a
bit of jumping around between sections of
the platform. The most effective approach
to setting all this up is as follows:
1. If you haven’t already, assign keywords to
the pages you want to rank for them using
Page Mapping in the Rankings section (see
p.34). This allows us to look at the value of
the keyword and attribute it to the page you
will eventually review in Writer’s Desktop.
2. Jump over to Content 360. This is where
you’ll actually be adding your tags (see
p.68). Tag the mapped pages with relevant
and descriptive labels. This bridges the
gap between keyword, page and tag.
3. Jump back to Writer’s Desktop. You can use the
tags to filter which content you want to review.
For a more detailed overview of how the
Tag area on the left panel works, and of
using tags in general, see p.9.
Manage Tags
From here you can add, delete, or edit tags,
as well as get an overview of all of your
tags in use throughout your project and
which kinds of assets they’re applied to.
Toolbar
Action
Dismiss
This performs the same function as the Dismiss
button on the table (see p.71), but can be
invoked for multiple selected items simultaneously.
Undismiss
This undismisses all selected dismissed pages from
your site. To select them you’ll need to activate the
Show Dismissed Pages filter option (see below).
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Filter
Show dismissed pages
To review dismissed pages and enable you to
undismiss any you wish to continue working
on, activate this filter option. Dismissed pages
will appear grayed out, and can be undismissed
from Action > Undismiss (see above), or from
the button on the far right of the table.
Add task
This button appears on almost every page
of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut for
creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a
complete overview of tasks, see p.105.
Search
The search field in Writer’s Desktop is
very straightforward; enter your search
term and the table will display pages
containing that text in their URL.
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LINK DATA
Link Data catalogs backlinks to you and your competitors’ domains (or
any other domains of interest). Managing the links to your website is still
one of the biggest factors in improving visibility, and with this section of
the platform you can easily identify influential, relevant and authoritative
sources, discover who’s linking to your competitors, and see who in
your industry has been publishing the content that attracts the most
backlinks. This information can be used to build valuable new links,
ultimately driving more traffic to your own sites.
Link Data can also be a valuable tool for
identifying bloggers and writers to reach out to
when promoting content during campaigns.
Backlinks can be thought of as a vote; a
guide to the content other websites want to
promote. Search engines assess the quality
and profile of backlinks to algorithmically
assess the quality and trust of your website;
a key factor in their decision about which
sites should rank and at which position.
Links from questionable sources are treated as
untrusted by Google and other search engines,
carrying the risk of a significant reduction in rank.
We take SEO link data from Majestic (https://
majestic.com), then recrawl and analyze,
validate and categorize it with our own
metrics to give you unrivaled proprietary link
data, essential for serious SEO projects.
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Using the Link Data section will help you discover:
• Your relationship to your media landscape
• Which websites, website types (blogs, new
sites, or forums, for example) and authors
have linked to you, your competitors
and other media stakeholders
• Which pages or content are most
frequently linked to, and from where
• Any of your backlinks which may be low influence,
causing damage to your site’s online reputation
You’ll also be able to map trends,
using the Timeline feature:
• How your backlink profile has changed over time.
• Which websites, website types, and authors
have linked to you, your competitors and
other media stakeholders in the last 30 days
Timelining can help you identify recent,
trending backlinks, which can be far
more interesting and useful from an SEO
perspective than historical totals.
Main Panel
Like many other Linkdex sections, the information
in the main panel is presented as a table
which can be filtered and reordered to taste.
Each column is described in detail below:
Market defining keywords
Immediately above the table you’ll see a single
row showing your market defining keywords—the
small selection of words and phrases that define
what you do and what you want to be found for.
Click on the Edit button at the far right to go to
the Keywords page of your Project Settings, where
you can add, remove, or edit items from this list.
You can have up to 10 of these keywords in a
project help us identify the relevance of linking sites
to your domain, so you can be confident you’re
spending your time building the best links possible.
Changing your market defining keywords
requires a huge amount of data processing
at our end, so results can take a while to
manifest, anything up to a few hours for
larger indexes. The good news is there’s no
extra cost associated with this processing.
Tip: For an alternative insight into your
backlinks and where they’re coming from,
take a look at the Content 360 section, which
shows the individual pages that make up your
site along with how many links each has going
to and from it both internally and externally,
and how many Facebook likes, Tweets, and
other social media events point to them.
Tip: Market defining keywords should not
be confused with the keywords you rank
check in the Keyword Rankings section.
The two are used in different ways, with
Rankings geared towards potential search
queries while the keywords entered into
your Project Settings are used to calculate
the relevance of linking pages, and should
basically describe the kind of market you’re
in—mortgages, holidays, fashion, and so on.
Right: Typical view of linking domains under
the Website column, with a collection of
social media links, various video links and
the occasional author or publisher.
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Website
This column lists all the domains currently
backlinking to your website, along with
their geolocation and site (meta) title.
You can assess each domain to determine the
most valuable links for you or your competitors,
who the important linking authors are, and how
relevant or influential the site is in your market.
A string of labels and buttons to the right
of the domain indicate attributes the
linking page possesses and any relevant
actions that can be performed
Social media icons
These identify any social media links found on the
home page of the site in question. Clicking on
these opens up a new browser tab and takes you
directly to the relevant profile. Some services may
require you to log in before you can view them.
Facebook Twitter
Google+ LinkedIn
Add Twitter profile to network
Where we’ve found one or more Twitter
accounts on a page, this button lets you
add them to a network (see p.91)
Brings up a window to let you add the
linking pages to a campaign (see Campaigns,
p.123). You can edit the list down from the
Details field, assign to a team member, add tags,
and set priority from the Importance drop-down.
These pages have identified authors
indicated by the rel=’author’ attribute. If you
expand this page’s entry by clicking the number in
the Linking pages column you’ll be able to see
more details and add the author to your contacts
and campaigns p.76.
Clicking this opens a new browser
tab with the Publisher’s Google+ profile (indicated
by a rel=”publisher” attribute applied to a linked
Google+ brand page, often a duplicate of the
Google+ profile already linked to by the icon).
The backlink is embedded in an image
anchor.
Indicates a new entry not found on a
previous index.
Indicates that the NoFollow tag
has been set on some or all of the backlinks from
this page.
Pages have video content from
Oolaya.
Pages have video content from
Vimeo.
Pages have video from content
YouTube.
Other video tags may be shown, including results
from Brightcove, Coull, and DailyMotion.
Also links to
You’ll see a number here indicating any common
links shared between you and your competitors.
Hovering the mouse pointer over this number will
show a list of the other competitors this domain
links to. When viewing link data for a competitor, if
one of their linking domains already links back to
you, you’ll see the icon here as well.
You may discover that your competitors
share an influential link that you’re missing,
indicating that domain often references your
market, or that a linking site has only a few
strong but very relevant links, indicating a
relatively untapped new opportunity. Either
way, this is a great way to identify authors
and domains worth your time and energy.
Influence bar
Influence is our own measure of a website’s
authority. Its objective is to weed out domains
with low quality link profiles and poor trust
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signals, and focus on and high quality, trusted
websites with high quality link profiles and
other trust signals valued by the major search
engines. The more complete the green bar
here is, the more authoritative and trusted the
website linking. For more detail on how we
developed this signal, see the box above.
Market keywords relevance bar
The more complete the blue bar the better
fit the linking page has with your market
defining keywords (see p.6).
Relevance is key when analyzing a website’s link
profile, as authoritative sites often accumulate links
from other high quality and topically relevant pages.
See the box above for more details
on how relevance is calculated.
Linking pages
This column shows how many discrete pages
from a referring domain link through to your
site, click the number to expand the row
for the following details on each page:
How does Linkdex calculate
Influence and Relevance?
Influence
Back when Linkdex started
out, the best measure of a
domain’s influence was either
to use the limited metrics
offered by AC Rank or MozRank.
We found that neither did
great job of downgrading
closed link networks or
websites with an abundance
of links but no PageRank.
We decided to create a new
scoring system that combined
data supplied by Majestic (such
as link volume), the presence
of positive signals such as
‘Contact Us’ and ‘Privacy Policy’
links, the presence of negative
signals (“Viagra”, for example),
and traffic metrics supplied
via Alexa Rank (websites that
have little or no traffic but
plenty of links are typically of
low trust and no PageRank).
The resulting algorithm
provides a much clearer
indication of a site’s
influence, bringing the
best sites to the top and
leaving the spam festering
at the bottom of the pile.
Relevance
When analyzing backlink
data, Linkdex analyzes every
linking page and stores it as
part of your project. It’s not
unusual for us to be storing
content from millions of
pages for each project.
When examining a linking
page’s relevance to your market
defining keywords, we look at
the whole page, including the
title, headings, body and links.
This information allows us to
provide unique calculations
that can help pinpoint specific
types of link opportunity,
saving time and helping
you build better links.
Above: The Influence and Relevance bars
can reveal a lot about a linking domain’s
match with your market. Below: An expanded
linking domain with author details.
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• Full web address
• Full title of the page
• Whether any of your market defining
keywords are part of the external link
• Total number of outbound links from the page
• Whether or not the NoFollow tag has
been applied to the links in question
• The full address of the backlink to your
site, and the anchor text used
• Links for any embedded videos on the page
• If present, the author’s name, which can be
clicked to take you to their profile page
Any pages where an author has been identified
will also include the following buttons:
Adds the author to your contacts
Adds the individual page to a campaign
Number of visits
If you or other members of your team have clicked
through to a site, the total number of visits will
appear as a number to the left of the Hide Details
button (see below). This alerts you to whether or
not your colleagues have been analyzing the page.
Hide details button
This button allows you to hide the domain. You
might want to do this if you deem it irrelevant or
poor quality, or to prevent other team members
working on domains you’ve already assessed.
Campaign link
After adding a domain or author to a campaign
(see p.123), you’ll notice a small megaphone
icon at the far right. Blue indicates a draft
or pending link, while green indicates a link
that has actually gone live. Clicking the icon
jumps you over to the relevant entity over
in the Campaigns section (see p.124).
Left Panel
Domains
This area provides a list of your competitors’
domains, with your own domain at the top, and
flagged with the icon. Adding a domain to a
project allows you to see how that site is ranking
for your keywords, analyze their backlinks, crawl
their content and more.
Unlike the Rankings section, you can only view
one domain at a time here, simply click on the
domain you’d like to examine and the main
panel will switch to displaying its backlink data.
Domains currently being timelined will be
flagged with a blue T, (Domains that have not
yet been indexed will have no such T). You can
pause and renew timelining from the buttons
on the toolbar (see p.79). Domains with
paused timelines will have a grayed-out T.
Individual domains can be deleted by simply
clicking the adjacent Trash button.
Analyze domain
If you wish to add further competitors to the
list in order to retrieve their backlink data, click
Analyze Domain and enter the domain, select
a timeline interval and make sure Analyze Links
For This Domain is checked. Link data typically
takes 24-48 hours to process depending on the
domain’s size and its number of backlinks.
Tip: In the Link Data and Rankings sections,
the domain lists behave in some ways as
separate lists—deleting a domain from
Rankings also deletes it from Link Data,
but deleting or pausing a domain from
Links Data has no effect on the same
domain in the Rankings section.
Tip: To get all the opportunities available
to you, you should be analyzing at least
the top 10 domains in your market.
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Occasionally, when trying to add a large domain
you’ll see an error message indicating that it exceeds
the size limit and cannot be added. If this happens,
contact your account manager; they will be able to
raise the limit for you or offer alternative approaches.
Adding domains requires index credits (see p.2)
Toolbar
Action
Export
Lets you export backlinks data to a spreadsheet
(in Excel or CSV format). A pop-up window
gives various options, including the number
of links to export, and whether to export just
to one page from each domain (‘Standard’),
or all linking pages (‘Extended’).
Once exported, your file will be available for
download from the Reports section (see p.18)
Filter button
Link Data provides some extremely powerful
filtering options and we recommend taking
the time to familiarize yourself with all of the
options available here for analyzing link profiles.
Date
Lets you select which index date to view
results for. If you’ve only just started timelining
a new project you won’t see much here, but
over time the list will grow giving you a useful
insight into your monthly progress (see Pause/
Resume Timelines, on the next page).
Site type
If you only want to see results from, for
example, blogs, wikis, or social media, you
can specify which site type you’re interested
in from this drop-down list. The options are:
• Blogs
• Articles
• News
• PR submissions
• Forums
• Directories
• Resources
• Wikis
It’s worth spending some time with Link Data’s filter • Social media
panel to familiarize yourself with the options available
and get accustomed with the Timeline feature.
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Location
Filtering by top level domain (.com, .net and
so on) and location (US, UK, DE, etc) helps
you shape an outreach approach and keep
linking domains country relevant. If working on
a German domain it may be more beneficial
from an SEO perspective to get links from
German hosted sites or .de domains.
Link anchor text
Lets you filter results down to only display
links containing the anchor text entered. The
drop-down lets you specify Phrase, which
shows all links containing the entered text,
even as a fragment of its full anchor text, or
Exact, which only returns exact matches.
The following options become available
when you click Show Advanced Link
Analysis at the bottom of the Filter panel.
Timeline comparisons
Here you can specify start and end points (from
your previous index dates) for a side-by-side
comparison of any changes over time. Selecting
Show New Only restricts the display to only new
links that have been achieved in the interim, while
selecting Show Dropped Only lets you focus
in on the links you’ve lost in that time stretch.
High influence only
Influence (see p.76) is measured logarithmically
as a score from 0-10, with 10 being the highest.
Selecting High Influence Only displays only
domains scoring 4 or higher, any score above
4 is considered to be a good quality signal.
Title/URL
Lets you filter linking sites by title or URL (including
drop-down options for either or both).
Link target URL
Lets you specify the specific path of the backlink
to your site. Only want to see pages linking
to your /store/ folder or /news.php page?
You can set that from here. The drop-down
lets you fine tune your results as follows:
• Starts with: inserts your domain URL in front of
the text field and lets you specify as deep into the
URL path as you’d like the filter to return results for.
• Contains: only URLs containing the
fragment entered here will be shown.
• Ends with: lets you specify the
last portion of the URL.
• Exact: only exact matches with the
full URL entered will be returned.
Exclude No Follow
Links including the NoFollow attribute
can be considered low value from an SEO
perspective. Checking this box excludes
these links from your results so you can
focus on the more important ones.
Authors
For campaign-focused research where you
want to build up contacts, check the Has
Author box to show only links with a specified
author. If you’re looking for someone specific
you can filter things down even further by
entering their name in the text field.
Video
Shows only linking pages that include a
video somewhere on the page. Results
for YouTube, Vimeo, Oolaya, Brightcove,
Coull and DailyMotion can be specified.
Social filters
Filters results to only show pages containing links
to the social media profiles you specify. Useful
if you prefer using one medium or another to
contact authors. The Google+, Twitter, Facebook,
and LinkedIn options can all be selected to
show any results containing any of these,
while the Publisher option restricts the display
to only those results where publisher details
using the Rel=author tag have been found.
Pause/resume timeline
Timelining is unique to the Linkdex
platform, enabling you to track link insights
over time, compare historical data and
quickly identify ‘new’ and ‘lost’ links.
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It’s useful for getting a picture of your competitors’
activity each month, whether you’re working
harder and smarter than them, or whether you
need to invest more in link building activity.
We crawl every page linking to your site
and create an index of the quality and
type of domain sending the link.
At regular intervals, this data is reprocessed, and
the subsequent calculations allow us to highlight
differences that have occurred over time.
If the currently selected domain is currently being
timelined you’ll see the Pause button in the
toolbar and a blue T next to that domain in the left
panel. Domains not currently timelined will have no
T (or a black T if they’re paused), and when
selected the toolbar will instead show the
Resume button.
Indexing one domain per month uses one domain
credit, twice a month uses two credits, and so on.
Change interval
This sets how often we recrawl the selected
domain. By default, link data analysis happens
every 30 days, but frequency can be increased
to 15 days or reduced to every 60 days.
More frequent data allows you to make more
informed and reliable outreach decisions. But
remember: crawls use credits, so be aware
of the interval’s impact on your resources.
Add task
The Add Task button appears on almost every
page of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut
for creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Link data index expiry
Indexes can swallow up large amounts of
data storage, and our policy is to retain
them for no more that 15 months. Over
this time the information’s value drops
off considerably, so long-term storage
isn’t currently economically justifiable.
Left: The Domains list with
various timeline states
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AUTHORS
It’s not just the domain that content is published on that matters, it’s
the writer behind that content. Linkdex continuously analyzes over 50
million keywords and hundreds of millions of pages to offer the largest
commercially available database for online authors, which can be used
to automate weeks worth of work when identifying bloggers and writers
to work with.
It can also be used to identify the most
authoritative and prolific authors so you can
find who is publishing the highest quality
and most popular content in your space.
The Authors section provides two unique
tools; Entity Search can be used for searching
and sorting author data, helping you find the
people writing articles that rank for your most
important keywords, are trusted by Google, and
are considered highly influential in your space.
Results can be filtered by country, estimated
traffic and an array of other useful criteria, and
social media profiles are provided, making it
easy to instantly reach out and start forming
relevant and appropriate relationships.
Entity Browser can be used to augment
your search, exploring the relationships
between authors, domains and keywords
visually on an easy to use nodal map.
Why are authors important?
Both Google and Bing have publicly discussed
the role of authorship and how important it
is to the future of search engines. Authorship
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can solve a number of key issues raised by
scenarios such as, for example, a low quality
author writing on a highly authoritative domain
(or vice-versa). Google in particular have
expressed a bias against web anonymity, with
authorship and local search signals rapidly
becoming fundamental to search algorithms.
Search engines consider both link and authorship
information when calculating relevance, authority
and ultimately how a website is ranked. They
try to identify “topical authorities”; authors who
write frequently about a topic, for the most
authoritative sites relating to that topic.
All forms of marketing that require conversations
with authors and influencers can benefit hugely
from this data. Identifying the most prominent
“topical authorities” can often prove to be one
of the most beneficial exercises when executing
campaigns and building an online brand.
You can use this section to build up contacts ready
to forge relationships with and use in both the
Campaigns and (optional) Networks sections.
Entity Search
Most people use Twitter data to work out who to include in PR and SEO outreach
plans. This is useful, but on its own presents an imperfect solution for a number
of reasons. Twitter only shows one (often personal) domain per user. Follower and
popularity metrics (Klout scores, for example) are, again, useful, but not the same as
Influence. Furthermore, Twitter data can tell you a lot, but doesn’t tell you whether
authors are trusted by Google, rank highly and actually get read.
Entity Search is a new type of search engine,
allowing SEO, PR and Social teams to prioritize
outreach based on what is going to be read, not
just said, in search engines. By topic and country.
What are entities?
Entities in the context of Entity Search are:
• People (authors)
• Websites (the websites people publish on)
• Keywords (the keywords these
people’s content ranks for)
• Rankings (the ranking position
in Google by country)
• Ranking content (the content that
ranks for a keyword in Google)
• Other content (any other articles by
an author not linked to one of the
domains in your project)
Search Panel
The Search panel sits between the toolbar and
main panel. It has two modes—Keyword Search and
Domain Search—which you can switch between
from the Search Type drop-down on the toolbar.
Keyword search
Keyword Search is separated into three text fields:
Keyword search field
Taking up the left-hand side of the panel is the
keyword search field. Here you can enter up to 50
keyword search phrases, separated by commas
or line breaks. Results will return any keywords
containing a term, but not as a part of a larger word.
For example, the search term ‘phone’ can return
‘phone socket’, but not ‘microphone’ or ‘telephone’.
Domain search field
Not be confused with the actual Domain Search;
you can optionally type domains in here to
refine your keyword search to only authors
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associated with these domains. You need to
have keywords or tag groups in one of the
other two fields in order for this to function.
Tag search field
Enter the names of any of your keyword tag
groups (from Rankings, see p.29) to effectively
search for all of the keywords contained in
that group. Tag groups containing less than
100 keywords are recommended here to yield
manageable results. The platform will actually
reject any search containing more than 500 terms.
Exclude coupon/voucher keywords
Vouchers, coupon, deals, discounts and words like
these can be excluded by ticking this check box. This
is useful if you don’t want to find affiliate authors.
Hitting Search will return all the authors in our
database whose articles have ranked for any keyword
that contains one of the search terms (filtered to
any domains added) in the main panel. At the far
right of the toolbar the Found number indicates
how many authors your search has turned up.
To help sift through your results you can
reorder the main panel by any column, take
advantage of the powerful Filter options from
the toolbar (see p.85), or use the following
search operators to refine your initial request.
Search operators
Searching for multiple keywords (separated by
commas or line breaks) effectively uses an OR
operator e.g. searching for nokia 1020, smartphone
will find authors that rank for keyword phrases with
“nokia 1020” OR “smartphone” as part of the phrase.
Placing square brackets around a term
searches only for exact matches, e.g. adding
them to [nokia 1020 smartphone] looks for
people ranking for that exact phrase.
Where required you can use the AND operator
between keywords e.g. windows AND lumia. This
search will find authors that rank for keyword phrases
with “windows” AND “lumia” as part of phrase.
If you need to include a search operator as
part of your keyword and not have it behave
as an operator in this context, you can achieve
this by enclosing the full phrase in doublequotes.
“Dolce and Gabbana” will yield
different results from Dolce and Gabbana.
Negative keywords can also be used e.g.
windows AND lumia, -deal. This search will
find authors that rank for keyword phrases
with “windows” and “lumia” but do not
contain the word “deal” as part of phrase.
Domain search
Domain Search provides an alternative approach,
looking for any authors who have published
ranking articles on the domains entered. Other than
that it works in much the same manner as Keyword
Search. Up to 50 domains can be searched at a
time (each on a new line or comma separated).
Above: the search panel in keyword search mode (top), and domain search mode (bottom).
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Main Panel
The main panel displays a list of each author
we’ve found who has written material that ranks
in the SERPs for one of your keyword search
terms, or has written content for one of the
domains in your domain search (see p.82).
Clicking on an author selects them and populates
the right panel with their full details (see p.85).
Author
Each author entry in the main panel is embellished
with their name, followed by social media icons
linking directly to any Google+, Twitter, Facebook,
or LinkedIn profiles we’ve found associated with
them. Below their name, there’s a Create
contact button, which adds the author to your
contacts, and an Archive button, which hides
them from view (this can be changed with a filter
setting, see p.85).
To the left of this you’ll see a selection
check box which you can use to select
individual or multiple authors and perform
actions on them in bulk from the toolbar.
Along the right hand side of each item, the
following columns can be used to sort authors
(ascending or descending value by clicking
the appropriate column header at the top
of the panel) by the following key data:
Ranking KWs (matching/domain)
A count of each author’s ranking
keywords matching the search.
Ranking KWs (global)
The total number of global keywords
for which the author ranks.
Avg. ranking matching KWs
The average rank of all of the
matching ranking keywords.
Est. traffic
The estimated traffic an author is receiving from
the matching keywords they are ranking for.
Toolbar
Select all box
Checking this box will select all main panel items
in the current view, for performing actions in bulk.
Action
Create Contact
Use this option for adding selected authors
as contacts in bulk. You get the option to add
tags to the contacts as part of this process.
Add to network
Authors who we’ve identified an associated
Twitter account for (evidenced here in their Bio,
Social Profiles & Metrics, and/or Recent Tweets
in the right panel, as well as the Twitter icon
next to their name on the main panel) can be
added to your networks (if you have Networks
activated, see p.91) directly from this section.
Simply select them with the check box and
then Action > Add To Network and select the
appropriate network from the drop-down list.
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Archive/unarchive
You can archive selected authors either individually
or in batches from here. To review archived
authors for potential unarchiving, switch off
Exclude Archived in the Filters panel (see below).
Export
Exports data for the currently filtered list
of authors in CSV or Excel formats. Once
exported you can download this from
the Reports section (see p.18).
Filter
Country
Use this drop-down to switch search territories.
Effectively this modifies the results based on
keyword rankings for searches within that country.
Max. keyword ranking
Filters the authors by only looking at keywords
ranking in the top 10, top 30 and so on.
Max. average ranking
Filters the authors to just those whose average
ranking is in the top 10, top 30 and so on.
Est. traffic
Set a range here in the From and To fields
to filter out authors whose estimated
matching traffic is outside of that range.
Keyword search volume
Set a range here in the From and To fields to show
only authors whose keyword search volume for
their matching keywords is within that range.
Exclude archived
Hides any archived authors from the main
panel view. This is switched on by default,
switch it off to review any archived authors.
Exclude authors with contacts
Filters out any authors you already
have in your contacts list.
Add task
The Add Task button appears on almost every
page of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut
for creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Search type
Use this drop-down to switch the Search
panel between Keyword and Domain
Search modes (see p.82).
Right Panel
The right panel is available only in the
Entity Search section and will display
details of the currently selected author.
At the top left of the panel, you’ll see the selected
author’s name and any profile photo they’ve
provided, and to the right of that, either a Create
Contact button, which adds them to your
contacts (prompting you to add any appropriate
tags first), or, if they’re already a contact, a
View Contact button, which opens up their
details in the Contacts section (see p.115).
Under the Create Contact
button you’ll notice the
View In Entity Browser
button, which examines the
entity within the Entity
Browser (see p.87).
Below the View In Entity
Browser button there is a
Report an issue button.
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If you believe an author’s data
or bio information is incorrect
or mixed up, you can click here
to flag the issue with our
technical team.
Depending on which other
information the author has
available, the following
tabs will be present:
Bio
This tab pulls in any bio
descriptions available from the
entity’s Twitter, G+, Facebook,
or LinkedIn profiles. A small icon
next to each entry indicates
the type of account from
which the data was drawn.
Social profiles & metrics
The first item under this tab
is the entity’s Klout Score; a
number between 1-100 that
represents their influence
according to Klout (see box).
Clicking the number opens
their Klout profile in a new tab.
Below this you’ll find key
information about any
associated social profiles,
number of Twitter followers,
how many Google+ circles
they’re in, number of
Facebook followers and so
on. Clicking the icon next to
each profile listed opens it
up in a new browser tab.
Domains
The websites we have
found that use the author’s
name, effectively these are
the domains publishing
this author, either directly
or by syndication. We also
Tip: Anywhere you see the
icon next to a domain,
keyword, or author in the
right panel you can click it
to examine this item in the
Entity Browser.
What is Klout?
A Klout score can be provided
where we have an associated
Twitter ID or Google + profile.
Here’s how Klout
describe themselves:
“Klout digs deep into social
media to understand how
people influence each other,
so that everyone can discover
and be recognized for how
they influence the world.
You can use the Klout Score
to understand how influential
you are; you can use your
topics to shape what you
are influential about.”
“Influence is the ability
to drive action, such as
sharing a picture that
triggers comments and
likes, or tweeting about
a great restaurant and
causing your followers to
go try it for themselves.”
Klout often divides opinion with
search marketing practitioners
often preferring other metrics,
while traditional marketing/
PR practitioners often find
the metric more useful.
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include any domains an author has included in
their social profiles as domains they write for.
Traffic
Two figures here give you some insight
into an author’s generated traffic.
Matching est. traffic
The estimated traffic an author is receiving
from the keywords they are ranking
for that match the search terms.
Total est. traffic
The estimated traffic an author is receiving
from all of the keywords they are ranking
for, irrespective of your search terms.
Matching keywords
A list of any search results the author is
associated with that contain any of your searched
keywords, along with a link to the article. To
the right you’ll see the search volume for this
phrase and the rank achieved by the article.
Other keywords
A list of other, non matching keywords the author
has ranking articles for, along with their rank,
search volume, and a link to the ranking page.
Other content
Shows any other pages written by
the author that we’ve found.
Links to
Shows any content that has links
to the project domains.
Recent tweets
The 10 most recent tweets by the author (if
we’ve identified an associated Twitter account).
Entity Browser
Entity Browser lets you easily move between authors, keywords and domains to
identify opportunities for outreach. It acts as a network diagram with related nodes
connected to each other.
You can double-click or right-click, and hover over
each of these nodes (e.g. a person or domain)
to expand related information and options:
• Authors: double-click to see all of the domains
an author writes for, and the keywords for
which they rank. Hover to see their estimated
traffic. Right-click to hide from the current
view, or to report a data issue (see p.85).
• Domains: double-click to see the authors
that publish and rank content on the
domain. Right-click to hide a domain
from the current view, or to report a data
issue. Hovering doesn’t do anything.
• Keywords: double-click to reveal other authors
ranking for this keyword. Hover to see search
volume for this keyword. Right-click to hide from
view, report a data issue, or to add the keyword to
the author’s Other Keywords group (see p.88).
If you’ve double-clicked an entity and
expanded its view, you can collapse it again
with another double-click. If the selected
node hosts a lot of different connections
this may take a while, and the edges of the
circle will pulsate red to indicate the platform
is busy collating this information for you.
If the entity you’ve double-clicked is a
person we show the keywords they’re
found for and the domains they write
for, whereas double-clicking on a
domain reveals all of its authors.
Halfway along a line between a keyword and
an author, a number in a small circle indicates
the rank achieved by the keyword for the
page written by the author. Hover over this
circle and a pop-up window will show you
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rank and estimated traffic details, along with
the full URL of the page in question.
Similarly on the links between an author and a
domain, a circle with a lower-case r in it indicates
the author is ranking for content they’ve written
for this domain (no ‘r’ means they’ve written for
this domain but that content hasn’t ranked).
Author nodes are embellished at their
edges with icons to represent any social
media profiles we’ve identified for them.
Domains are flagged similarly with a number
indicating the number of authors writing for them
(and that will be revealed with a double-click).
Keyword groups
To keep the Entity Browser usable, we
only include an author’s 100 best ranking
keywords. We display the top 5 as nodes
and group the next 95 together in an Other
Keywords node. You can right-click this
node and select Expand Keywords Group
to see the full list. These can be filtered from
the search field at the top of the list.
Why might an author you know not appear?
Linkdex uses complex algorithms to piece
together people, the domains they write on
and their social profiles. We have millions of
authors in our database but the algorithm
occasionally fails to find the evidence it needs
to confidently display an author. Because
this innovation is still in BETA it’s getting
better all the time. Please let us know if your
search results seem inaccurate by rightclicking
and selecting Report Data Issue.
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Next to each keyword, a number in brackets
shows its rank, and a check box lets you select
it. Selected keyword can then be moved into the
browser display by clicking Show keywords.
To tidy away any keyword back into this group,
right-click on its node and select Add to group.
Entity Browser Controls
Orientation tool
Click the left/right/up/down arrows to pan
around the browser display. You can also
click and drag around the screen when
the hand tool is selected (see below).
The dot at the center of the orientation tool
centers the display and scales it to fit on screen.
Hand/arrow toggle
Click this little button to toggle between the
hand and arrow tools. The hand tool lets you
click and drag to move freely around the
network, while the arrow tool drags a selection
box around a number of entities in one go. You
can also hold down SHIFT on your keyboard to
drag (or right-click and hide) multiple selections
across different areas of the browser.
Hovering the arrow tool over a selected
area turns the arrow pointer back into a hand,
which you can use to drag the selected items
to a different location. You can also drag
any connecting lines out into
curves if it helps visualize a
complex cluster of nodes.
Zoom slider
Drag the slider up to zoom in,
down to zoom out. You can also click the + and
– buttons at either end to zoom by increment,
or, if your mouse has a scroll wheel, use that to
zoom in and out. You can also use a two-finger
zoom gesture on Mac, and some PC trackpads.
Zoom arrow
Hidden down in the bottom right of the display,
you’ll notice a small arrow. Click it to pop out
a tiny overview of the entire map, with a gray
rectangle showing the area you’re currently
viewing. You can drag this rectangle around to
move quickly to a different part of the network.
Redraw
As soon as you start expanding entities out
to see their other domains, keywords, etc,
the display will quickly become confusing
Right: the Entity Browser controls,
(top to bottom: Orientation tool,
Hand/Arrow toggle, Zoom Slider,
Redraw button, Full-screen
button, Highlight Steps from
Selection button, New Domain
button, Add Domain button,
and Switch Countries button.
Above: close-up of the expanded
Zoom Arrow navigation pop-out.
Node sizing
The nodes in Entity Browser are
sized according to different criteria
depending on the type of entity:
• Authors are sized by Est. Traffic to
their ranking content from their
global ranking keywords.
• Domains are sized by Domain
Influence (see p.76).
• Keyword nodes are sized by search
volume in the selected country.
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and unwieldy. The network will redraw itself quite often, but you can click this button to redraw the current view to a more manageable state any time you need to.
Full screen
Takes the browser into full screen mode so you’ve got more room to explore the browser in. Press ESCAPE on your keyboard to switch back to regular view.
Highlight steps from selection
To get an idea of any obscured connections between entities on a complex display, select the number of degrees of separation (or ‘steps’) from the pop-out menu. Nodes identified outside of this range will be faded to give focus to your chosen limit.
New domain
Start browsing again from scratch with a completely new domain.
Add domain
Rather than starting afresh with a new domain (above), this control lets you add more domains to the existing session, along with any connections between them.
Switch countries
To view the browser results based on ranking results for different countries, use this button to select a country from the pop-out menu. You’ll need to have a single author or domain selected, and the resulting display will be based on that particular entity. The authors or domain will become the central node of the new search when selected.
Tip: If the platform prompts you to “Please select a single author or domain to show in new country”, try clicking away from any entities to clear your selection, then reselect your chosen entity and try again.
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NETWORKS
Networks is a groundbreaking tool that enables you to take a small group of
influential people and grow it into a large, detailed network of contacts that
you can work with in your campaigns, visualizing social media data to achieve
a number of key insights.
• Understand an industry and
pinpoint the major players
• Analyze how the network evolves over
time as a way to measure influence
• Identify contacts you can approach for an
introduction to key people within the network
Networks and visualization helps set a
social objective for a brand so they can
make an informed decision on who to
build relationships with. Over time you will
curate a valuable group of contacts, which
can be further analyzed and targeted for
outreach, based in turn on their contacts and
influence over other network members.
Twitter authorization
We use the Twitter API to find influencer
recommendations, so you’ll need to authorize
Linkdex to access a Twitter account in
order to get suggestions and for other parts
of the Networks section to function.
To avoid slow update performance in Networks
due to data throttling from the Twitter API,
Tip: Currently, Networks is only available to
a small number of users. If social networking
is central to your work and you think this
tool would be useful, contact your Account
Manager and ask for it to be turned on.
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we recommend that each project you
authorize uses a different Twitter account.
Things Linkdex can do after authorization:
• Read Tweets from your timeline
• See who you follow
Things Linkdex can’t do after authorization:
• Follow new people
• Update your profile
• Post Tweets for you
• Access your direct messages
• See your Twitter password
You can revoke authorization at any point
from your Twitter settings page, or from the
Twitter tab in Project Settings (see p.16).
Setting up your networks
Begin by building out 5 ‘seed groups’—networks
of the people that fall into the same niche within
your field; publishers, brands, competitors,
bloggers, and so on. Try to identify a small group
of 4 to 10 people for each network, or as many
solid connections as you already know who are
from the same industry or talk about the same
topic. Grouping people into different networks
based on their general ‘theme’ allows us to
easily understand and deliver better insights.
You can then start to flesh out your networks
based on our generated suggestions (see p.94).
We will identify 250 other people in each
category, based on commonalities of
followership, subject matter, and so on. The
more coherent your seed group in similarity of
subject matter and activity, the more accurate
and valuable our suggestions will be.
When perusing suggestions, the right panel
provides a range of useful data: any domains
or other social profiles associated with the
person, any of your other networks they’re
already in, their most recent tweets, and
more. You can also add people to multiple
networks from here (see p.102).
Continue to build out each network by:
• Adding selected suggestions to your
niche groups and using them to
generate even better suggestions
• Adding your contacts into appropriate groups
• Adding authors into the appropriate niche group,
using the Authors (especially Entity Search, see
p.84), and Link Data (see p.75) sections
An optimal Total Network (i.e. the combined total
of all your networks, viewable at the bottom of
your Networks list on the left panel) should have
at least 150 members and no more than 500.
Up to this point you will have been operating
in list view, the next step is to use the Network
Visualization for an insightful representation of
the web of network influence (see p.95).
This opens up a range of possibilities. You could
look for your existing contacts (highlighted
in orange) and try to influence the members
that you can easily reach. Alternately you
could filter out everyone but the most
influential and target those people directly.
Categorizing the nodes with network labels
as you work adds another layer of insight
to the visualization, color-coding them
based on your relationship (see p.101).
Creating contacts from network members, adding
these as prospects to the Campaigns section,
adding tasks and otherwise integrating Networks
information into the rest of the platform allows
you to use this data in a clear and targeted way.
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Network List
The main panel has two tabs; Members and Suggestions. Members has two views—
Network List and Network Visualization, which we’ll describe later on. The Network List
view basically displays a list of each entity who is a member of your currently viewed
network (as selected from the Networks tab, see p.101). Left and right panels are the
same for each part of this section.
Each entity is embellished here with some basic
information pulled from their Twitter account—
their profile photo and name, which links directly
to their Twitter profile. Their geographic location
and Bio blurb (if present), and Network Influence
Score, represented by a colored bar (see p.103).
Over on the right you’ll find a button to Create
Contact, which adds the person in question to your
contacts list (see p.115) (if the entity is already in
your contacts list, you’ll see a blue View Contact
button here instead). You’ll also see a Delete button
for removing the person from your network.
Clicking on an entity selects them and populates
the right panel with their full details (see p.102).
Toolbar
Select all box
Checking this box will select all main panel items
in the current view, for performing actions in bulk.
Action
Delete
Removes the selected members from
your network.
Create contacts
Lets you create multiple contacts from
the selected network members.
Create a new network
Select one or more people from the main
panel and create a new network to add them
to. You’ll be prompted to name this network,
after which it’ll be available from the Networks
tab at the top of the left panel (see p.101).
Generate suggestions
This will generate up to 250 suggestions
for potential new prospects to add to your
network, which can then be perused from
the Suggestions tab (see p.94). You’ll need
at least 2 people in a network before we
can generate any suggestions for you.
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Add people to network
From here you can paste in the Twitter IDs
(in the format: @twittername) of anyone
you’d like to add directly into your network.
Add one person per line and then click the
Add People button to seal the deal.
Analyze network
With the exception of Recent Tweets, network
data is a static snapshot in time and doesn’t
update automatically. In order to get a current
picture of how the people and brands in your
network have interacted, based on the most
recent 200 tweets, use this action. It can take a
while for network analysis to complete, but you’ll
be sent an email to let you know when it’s done.
Add to an existing network
Adds the selected members to one
of your other networks, which can be
selected from the sub-menu.
Assign network label
Lets you add labels to multiple
selected members (see p.101).
Export
Exports data for the currently selected
network in CSV or Excel formats. Once
exported you can download this from
the Reports section (see p.18).
Add Task
This button appears throughout the platform,
for creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Suggestions
Suggestions are an invaluable tool for expanding a network beyond your initial list. Click
Action > Generate Suggestions on the toolbar, or simply select the Suggestions tab (on
first use for each network). Once prompted, we will generate a list of influential people
linked to that network and email you once it’s ready.
We analyze a profile’s most recent 200 tweets
to determine their reach in spreading messages,
and then supply a Network Influence Score
(see p.103) to indicate their strength within
the seed group, based on mutual followers.
Suggestions can be used to populate new
networks or added to the current network
to gain yet more accurate suggestions on a
better defined group of influencers. We further
help you determine relevance by supplying
details of each person’s most recent tweets
and other details in the right panel. This can
be an iterative but rewarding process.
In terms of functionality, the Suggestions tab
works in much the same way as the main
Members network list, with an additional
Add To Network button on the left, which
you can use to add individuals to become
members the currently selected network.
More in-depth options are available under the
Actions button on the toolbar (see below).
Toolbar
Select all box
Checking this box will select all main panel items
in the current view, for performing actions in bulk.
Action
Add to this network
Adds the suggestions to the current network.
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Delete
Removes the selected suggestions
from your suggestions list.
Create contacts
Turns the selected suggestions into contacts.
Create a new network
Takes all of the suggestions you currently
have selected, adds them to a new
network and prompts you to name it.
Generate suggestions
Adds potential network members to the
Suggestions tab for your perusal. You’ll
need to be viewing a specific network
for this to function (Total Network view
will return an error). After adding new
members to your network, you can run
this again to get new suggestions.
Add suggestion to network
Adds the selected suggestions to one
of your other networks, whichever
you choose from the sub-menu.
Export
Exports data for your suggestions in CSV or Excel
formats. Once exported you can download
this from the Reports section (see p.18).
Filter
Exclude current contacts
Ticking this box removes anyone already in your
contacts list from the visible suggestions.
Add task
The Add Task button appears on almost every
page of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut
for creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Network Visualization
Network Visualization provides a nodal map showing interactions between your
network’s members on Twitter.
It’s a powerful tool, allowing you to examine
how people are interconnected via Twitter
and how those relationships can help
identify opportunities to infiltrate a network
or a vertical and spread your message.
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When the visualization is available, you can begin
to explore it depending on your objective. You
can activate Advanced Filters from the toolbar
and jump between networks from the left panel to
manipulate who is displayed on screen and how
deep into their circle of influence you wish to look.
The objective here is for your brand or client
to be at the center of a tight cluster of core
influencers. This can be achieved by identifying
individuals to whom you may have no connection
but have the network reach to increase the
velocity at which a message is spread.
Begin by selecting advocates of your brand who
are already known to you, see who else they’re
connected to in the broader sphere, and use
the visualization to help you start thinking about
how you can leverage those connections to your
advantage. Some of these advocates may not
be especially influential themselves, but may be
connected to people of much higher influence.
Try to identify genuine relationships, people
who actually have exchanges, as opposed
to just following each other back. Linkdex
looks at the most recent 200 tweets between
profiles and displays these interactions in the
visualization. If two profiles haven’t interacted
in their last 200 tweets at the time of the last
network analysis (see p.94) there will be
no link between them on the visualization.
People with the most influence and most
connections will always be towards the center of
the visualization cluster, with the less influential
people gravitating out more towards the edges.
Tip: The first thing you need to do after
entering the Network Visualization is to head
to the toolbar and click Action > Analyze
Network. Once the analysis is complete
(anything up to 24-48 hours, depending
on size), you’ll be emailed to let you know,
and can then start using this section.
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To further aid you in identifying influence,
more active and connected nodes
are represented by larger circles.
Select a node by clicking on it. You’ll
see all of the other nodes they’ve had direct
interactions with in their last 200 tweets
highlighted. You’ll also notice the links between
the nodes are terminated by arrows to indicate
the direction of the conversation (and thus
influence). A green arrow pointing outwards shows
the selected person has tweeted @ another node
(the recipient node will also have a thin green
outline), while a blue arrow pointing inwards to
the selected node (and a blue outline around
the originating node) indicates contact in the
opposite direction. Two-way conversations will
show both green and blue arrows pointing back
and forth between two nodes. The strengths
of these interactions (based on frequency
and reciprocation) can be filtered using the
Relationship Strength slider, allowing you to see
only the strongest lines of communication.
At the left of the visualization you’ll see some
basic zoom, pan and drag controls to help you
navigate. For even more control, click the
Advanced Filters button on the toolbar (see
p.99) to switch on an array of sliders for
modifying the information displayed.
To examine potential network reach of an
individual beyond their immediate contacts, you
can increase the Steps from Selection slider to
see who those contacts influence and so on.
Tip: your currently selected node will always
stay on screen, even if the advanced filters
remove any visible connection with others.
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You can also select multiple nodes by Shiftclicking
as many as you like. The advanced
filters will act on your multiple selections in the
same way, showing you, for example, how far
your message could reach if you contacted
a handful of the bloggers in your network.
You can create a contact from a selected node
by clicking Create Contact at the top of the right
panel (if they’re already a contact of yours you’ll
see a blue View Contact button here instead).
Any nodes identified as an author from their
associated Google+ profiles, or from rel=Author
tags in content they’ve written at some point, are
flagged with an orange A for easy identification.
Obviously other nodes may also be authors,
but these are the ones we know about.
Any contacts or other nodes assigned a
network label (see p.101) will be shown with
the appropriately colored circle. Members
who are in more than one of your networks
will be shown with a small colored label
containing the number of networks they’re in.
Navigating the visualization
To help you move around within the visualization
we’ve provided a simple navigation system. If
you’re familiar with Google Maps you’ll find this
fairly self-explanatory, but here’s a full run-down.
Orientation tool
Click the left/right/up/down
arrows to pan over the Visualization
map in the appropriate direction.
You can also click and drag around the screen
when the hand tool is selected (see below).
The dot at the center of the tool centers the
visualization and scales it to fit on screen.
Hand/arrow toggle
Click this little button to toggle between
the hand and arrow tools. The hand
tool lets you click and drag to move freely
around the visualization, while the arrow tool
can be used to drag a selection box around a
number of nodes in one go. You can also hold
down Shift on your keyboard to drag multiple
selections across different areas of the map.
Hovering the arrow tool over a selected area
turns the Arrow pointer back into a hand,
which you can use to drag the selected items
to a different location. You can also drag any
linking arrows out into curved lines if it helps
visualize a complex cluster of nodes.
Zoom slider
Drag the slider up to zoom in,
down to zoom out. You can also
click the + and – buttons at either end
to zoom by increment, or, if your mouse
has a scroll wheel, use that to zoom
in and out.
Zoom arrow
Hidden down in the
bottom right of the
visualization, you’ll notice
a small arrow. Click it to
pop out a small overview
of the entire map, with a
gray rectangle showing the area you’re currently
viewing. You can drag this rectangle around to
move quickly to a different part of the map.
Toolbar
Action
Generate suggestions
Adds potential network members to the
Suggestions tab for your perusal (see p.94).
Add people to network
From here you can paste in the Twitter IDs
(in the format: @twittername) of anyone
you’d like to add directly into your network.
Add one person per line and then click the
Add People button to seal the deal.
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Analyze network
Select this option to analyze (or re-analyze)
your network and rebuild the visualization.
Visualizations are just snapshots in time, so if you
add new members or just want a working model
based on more recent interactions, analyze the
network. You can do this as often as you like,
and it doesn’t use up any credits, but can take
up to 48 hours for a large, complex network to
complete, you’ll be notified by email when the new
visualization becomes available. Unlike suggestions
this can yield different results after a period of
time, even if no new members have been added,
depending on the tweets that have been sent.
Filter
Crawl
A drop-down list here of your previous
network analyses lets you jump between
historical snapshots to compare how
your network has shifted over time.
Show contacts & bridges
Unchecking this box hides any nodes
labeled as contacts or bridges.
Std. filters
• Default: the filter is effectively disabled,
any Advanced Filter settings will apply.
• Strongest relationships: simplifies the view
to show only the nodes who have had strong
interactions (the equivalent of Relationship
Strength 3 from the advanced filters).
• Closest to me: shows only network members
you’ve had direct interactions with.
• Linking authors: highlights any linking
authors detected in the network.
Advanced filters
To hone in on the information you’re looking for,
this button reveals a series of sliders for filtering
out various levels of data in the visualization.
Network influence (0-10)
As you increase the value of this slider,
lower influence nodes will disappear in
order that you can focus more on the
most influential players in that space.
Relationship strength (0-20)
Filters down the display based on the strongest
connections between nodes, i.e. the ones who
communicate back and forth the most (determined
by how much of a two-way dialogue they’ve had
within their most recent 200 tweets). As you set
the slider higher, weaker relationships will fall away.
Steps from selection (0-4)
To get an idea of a node’s potential network
reach beyond their immediate contacts (who
their contacts are in contact with, and who they
in turn are in contact with, up to a fourth degree
of separation), increase this slider. This is a great
way to examine how far your message might
reach if you manage to influence this member.
Spacing
Can be used to spread out or close up the
gaps between nodes in a cluster, to fine-tune
what you’re seeing at any given point in time.
Node size
Increase or decrease the size of the displayed
nodes, this can be reduced to clean up an
Tip: You’ll need to be viewing a specific
network for the above actions to function
(Total Network view will return an error).
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intense cluster for easier viewing, or increased
to better show the difference in size (or
influence) between different nodes.
Reset
This option resets all of the advanced
filters to their default values.
Switch between radial
and normal layout
The radial layout is another way to view the
network data. This positions your currently selected
node (or nodes) at the center of the visualization,
with the nodes they have the most influence
on closer to them near the center, and so on,
with the nodes they have the least influence on
radiating out to the furthest edges of the display.
Redo the layout
Re-draws the network visualization based on
the current selected nodes and advanced
filter settings to give you an alternate
view based on these relationships.
Manage relationships
Don’t let the name confuse you, all this actually
does is open up a window to show all of the
network labels currently applied to your network
members (which you can also edit from the
Network tab on the right panel). Hit the Trash
button to delete a relationship (between a member
and its network label). The Add New Relationship
link at the bottom lets you enter Twitter IDs in bulk
(one per line), while assigning them a label from
the drop-down menu.
Add task
This button provides a quick shortcut for
creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Tip: people from your Suggestions tab
are not displayed in the visualization, only
the members of the selected network.
Radial layout of the
Network Visualization
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Left and Right Panels
Left Panel
Networks
All of your networks are listed here, along
with the number of members you currently
have in each. Clicking a network on the list
focuses the main panel list, suggestions,
or visualization on that network.
At the bottom of the list, Total Network shows
you how many discrete individuals make up your
entire network. Clicking it shows the Network List
or Visualizations for all networks together. The
Suggestions tab will not be available in this view.
Add network
Hit this button to create new networks based
on what you’re looking for—bloggers, editors,
high-level influencers who transcend niche
boundaries, premium brands, high street retailers
and so on. A window opens for naming the
network, and a text field lets you directly enter
the Twitter IDs of people you’d like to add to it.
Manage networks
This button pops up a window, which basically
recreates the networks list at the top of the panel,
with the addition of a Trash button for deleting
a network, and an Edit button for renaming it.
Network labels
A useful way to identify what kind of contact each
person is to you, and how you interpret your
relationship with them. We’ve provided a range of
useful labels by default, but you can create your
own from the Customize Labels button (see below).
Adding labels will color-code nodes in the
visualization, so you can see at a glance what
kind of people the nodes you’re looking at are.
• Contact: people who are already in touch
with your organization directly. This label
is added automatically to any of your
existing contacts who become members
of your network (or network members who
you subsequently turn into contacts).
• Bridge: we identify people who are neither
contacts nor network members, but who
bridge between others who are. You can
use bridges to find more links between
your contacts and their influencers.
• Me: anyone who is also a colleague or
a part of your organization (effectively
Us). We don’t automatically detect this,
so you’ll have to set it manually.
Other labels we’ve provided include
Competitor, Publisher, Person and Brand.
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Labeling your members diligently lets you see
how a network works, giving actionable insight
upon which you can start your outreach.
You can only apply one network label per
member, so it’s up to you to choose the most
relevant one on a case-by-case basis.
Customize labels
From here you can edit the name and color of
each of your network labels; click on the hex
value to the right and use the color picker to
select a new color. You can also type in the hex
code for a specific color here if you know it.
Clicking Add Row at the bottom of the panel lets
you create as many extra labels as you need.
Right Panel
The right panel is available in the Members and
Suggestions section and will display details of the
currently selected entity. As with other sections,
you can collapse the panel off to one side by
clicking the button, particularly useful for freeing
up more screen area when viewing the Network
Visualization.
At the top left of the panel, you’ll see the current
selection’s name and any profile photo they’ve
provided, and to the right of that, either a Create
Contact button, which adds them to your
contacts (prompting you to add any appropriate
tags first), or, if they’re already a contact, a
View Contact button, which opens up their
details in the Contacts section (see p.115).
Under the Create Contact button you’ll notice
the View In Entity Browser button, which
examines the entity within the Entity Browser
(see p.87).
Depending on which other information they have
made available, the following tabs will be present:
Bio
This tab pulls in any
bio descriptions available
from the entity’s Twitter, G+,
Facebook, or LinkedIn profiles.
A small icon next to each entry
indicates the type of account
from which the data was drawn.
Social profiles & metrics
The first item under this tab is the entity’s
Klout Score; a number between 1-100 that
represents their influence according to Klout,
for more on how this is worked out, visit https://
klout.com/corp/score. Clicking the number
opens their Klout profile in a new tab.
Below this you’ll find key information about
any associated social profiles, number of
Twitter followers, how many Google+ circles
they’re in, number of Facebook followers and
so on. Clicking the icon next to each profile
listed opens it up in a new browser tab.
Domains
Here you’ll find links to any domains associated
with the profile. Click the button to examine
a domain in the Entity Browser (see p.87).
Network
Add to network
Add the entity to as many of your networks as
you like. Each network added will show here as
a small tag-like green label. Hit the small X on a
label to remove the entity from that network.
Network label
Assign network labels from the drop-down list
(for more on network labels, see p.101).
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Network score (for each network added)
Like a Klout score, this is another way to evaluate a
node’s influence within the network based on their
interactions with other nodes (it uses the same
algorithm used to generate suggestions). Unless
you have a very clearly defined network this often
won’t return a value, and you’ll see a dash here.
Network influence
We analyze the most recent 200 tweets of
everyone in the entity’s networks, along with
their number of followers to see how far
their reach is within a certain vertical, and
calculate a score, represented here (and on
their entry on the main panel) by a simple
bar chart, to indicate their influence.
Recent tweets
This tab provides a timeline with the entity’s
10 most recent tweets, useful for examining
suggested or existing network members’
connections and areas of interest. Recent Tweets
updates continuously, as opposed to other
information within this section which is taken
as a snapshot and needs to be updated with
the Analyze Network action (see.p.94).
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TASKS
Tasks are an essential tool for managing workflow and optimizing
your team’s efforts. Linkdex offers a flexible, detailed task system,
integrated across the entire platform. Tasks can be tagged, assigned to
team members, have files attached, be tracked with due and completion
dates, and more.
One of the core philosophies behind Linkdex is
that data insight should be clear and actionable.
In order to deliver this we’ve developed tasks
to give users the means to manage and act
on the insights provided by the platform,
both individually and across teams.
The Add Task button can be found throughout
the platform, allowing you to quickly and easily log
an issue that needs to be addressed and assign
ownership, deadlines, and other parameters. Tasks
added elsewhere within Linkdex can all be seen
and managed from the Tasks section.
Tasks can be used in three key ways; for team
members to manage their own workflow, for
project managers and CEOs to gain an overview of
all work being completed, ensuring their teams are
working effectively and efficiently, and to compare
actions taken with the results of your campaigns.
Task annotations
Once tasks are completed, they become
annotations on charts in the Rankings and
Dashboard sections, giving visual feedback
to help you understand the long-term
cause and effect completed work had
on rankings, performance and ROI.
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Add/Edit Task Window
Across most of the toolbars in the platform
you will have noticed an Add Task button.
Clicking it will launch this pop-up window,
allowing you to create a task for yourself
or another team member.
Whether creating a new task from anywhere
within the platform, or editing an existing
one within the Tasks section, this same Add/
Edit Task window will appear. Between its
three tabs it covers every option available for
working with your tasks. For a quick glance at
the currently selected task (within the Tasks
section), all of the information from this window
is replicated (and editable) in the right panel.
Depending which part of the platform you
add your task from, some of the options
below will already be filled in for you, and
appropriate drop-downs selected, based on
the context from which it was created.
Task description
Title
The title of your new task.
Task list
To further help you sort and manage your tasks,
you can file it under it a task list from here. Task lists
are accessible from the left panel (see p.112).
Owner
The team member you’d like to assign the task to.
Due date
When do you need this task completed
by? You can enter that here.
Completed date
This lets you specify the date of completion, if
different from the date automatically generated
when you mark the task as completed.
Above: Website traffic by type, charted in the dashboard section. The small green triangles along the baseline
represent ‘events’, which include completed tasks. Hovering the mouse pointer over the date in question brings up
a list of data for that date, along with details of the completed task (or other event) in a box underneath the chart.
Tip: In Rankings, annotations can also be
filtered by page group (see p.41); useful
if you’re looking at how completed work on
a content cluster has affected rankings.
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Priority
The task’s priority (Low, Normal or High).
Tasks can be filtered by priority (see
p.111), and a colored strip appears on
the main panel list next to each task.
Tags
For sorting large numbers of tasks, tags are
invaluable. Add as many as you like from here, just
hit the Edit button and start typing. Any tags
already existing within the Tasks section will be
auto completed for you. If you want to add a tag
that is already in use in another section without
trying to remember its exact name, you’ll find it
easier to use the drop-down list from Action > Add
Tag on the toolbar (see p.110).
Details
Here you can elaborate on the task title by adding
any further instructions or details to support its
execution. In addition to this, you can also add
procedural notes and updates via the Notes option
in the Other Details tab (or from the right panel).
Pages
The Pages tab lets you refer to a specific page
when adding a task. This is part of an integrated
task impact system called HITs (High Impact
Tasks), useful for evaluation purposes. Choose the
type of task this is from the Action Type menu,
and then enter a target or proposed page URL
(one field or the other will become available for
input depending on the action type selected).
Using data from other areas of the platform we
can establish how important the task may be,
based on search volume, rankings and other
factors. A higher HIT point score indicates tasks
that are more likely to help your online visibility.
For more on HIT points, see the box on p.108.
Other details
Forecast time
Enter an estimation here for how long you
think the task will take to complete.
Actual time
When you or the assigned team member
completes the task, they can log the actual
hours taken here, in the interests of measuring
efficiency, or for help with timesheeting.
Followers
Even if you’re not the assigned owner of a
task, you or any other team member can
keep track of its progress by becoming a
follower. Simply add yourself from this dropdown
list (or from the right panel in Tasks).
Tasks you’re following won’t show up in your
assigned tasks. To view them, you’ll have to
select All from the Project Team list on the left
panel (see p.111) and then set the Follower
filter from the toolbar (see p.111) to yourself.
The following options are also available
here when opening your tasks from
with the Tasks section itself:
Files
Use this facility to attach any supporting files to
your task. Hit the Choose File button and browse
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to the file on your computer, then hit the Upload
button. Once uploaded the file can be downloaded
from here (or the right panel) with a single click, or
delete it from the task with the Trash button.
You can add as many files as you like, but
the individual size limit is 5MB per file.
Notes
Notes are automatically generated every time
a user makes any changes to the task. They
include a brief description of the changes made
and a time stamp. You can also add notes of
your own, to provide feedback or use as a
conversation thread with other colleagues.
Just type straight into the text field here (or
on the right panel) and hit Add Note.
Main Panel
The main panel presents a list of all the tasks
within your project, which can be ordered
or filtered from options available in the toolbar
and left panel.
Select a task by clicking on it, and you’ll be
able to see all of its details in the right panel.
Clicking a selected task again opens up
the Add/Edit Task window for editing.
Each task in the main panel displays its
name, along with a few other items:
Title
The task’s title, as added when the task
was created.
High Impact Tasks (HITs)
High Impact Tasks can
be a useful shortcut for
evaluating the potential
impact of performing
certain tasks, helping you
to prioritize your workload
in an efficient manner.
When creating or editing a
task, click the Pages tab. From
here you can specify the nature
and target page for the task
you are undertaking. Make the
appropriate selection from
the Action Type menu and
enter the URL of the page the
task affects. Any task which
doesn’t involve a specific page
should be left as a ‘Standard’
task (the default option) and
can’t be treated as an HIT.
Another thing to note at
this stage is that your target
page needs to have mapped
keywords (see p.34) with
search volume data in order for
HIT Points to work properly.
Assuming all the above is
in place, your task will now
return a value for HIT Points,
visible on this tab, under the
Pages tab of the right panel,
and as a yellow label on the
task in the main panel.
These points help organize your
workflow based on which tasks
are more valuable, and show
you which page groups contain
the most important tasks.
To calculate HIT Points, we look
at a page’s traffic opportunity
and assign a value depending
on the task type. For example,
if you resolve a severe crawl
issue, that’s generally more
valuable than adding an
image alt tag, depending on
the page’s traffic/value.
As you work through your
website making optimizations,
you’ll notice pages that were
once rich sources of HIT
Points—those that required
lots of work—become less
critical and return fewer
points.
Ensuring pages
show HIT points
When you add a page to a task,
we check to see if that page has
been mapped to any keywords.
If so, we check whether
the mapped keywords have
search volume or custom CTR
values (otherwise the default
system CTR will be used).
With this data we can assign
HIT points to your task in a
gamified way that makes it easy
to prioritize your workflow. All
you need to do is make sure
that page targets have mapped
keywords and we’ll do the rest.
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Countdown
In the top-left corner of each task,
you’ll see a countdown to the number
of days until its due date,
Selection box
These check boxes can be used to select
individual or multiple items for performing
Actions on from the toolbar. Because there’s
no table header in Tasks, you’ll notice the
Select All box at the top is actually built
into the toolbar.
Priority indicator
Immediately under the selection box you’ll
see a color strip running up the side of the
task. This indicates the task priority, as set
when the task was originally created, or from
List, Tags & Priorities on the right panel. The
color coding here is as you’d expect:
• Red: high priority
• Green: normal priority
• Gray: low priority
Labels: HIT Points, Tags,
Tasks List, Owner
Over on the right, you’ll see some colored
labels showing the following:
YELLOW: the HIT point score for any
High Impact Tasks (see p.108)
MINT: any tags assigned to the task
GREEN: the task list this task is
assigned to (see p.112)
BLUE: the owner assigned to the task (see p.106)
You may expect to see any followers listed
here as well. They’re not, but look across to
the right panel and you’ll see any assigned
followers listed under the Team tab.
Task Action buttons
The currently selected task will be indicated
by a blue tint, and the following buttons
will also be available along the bottom:
Delete
Permanently deletes the task at hand.
Tasks can’t be undeleted, so go easy.
Completed?
Brings up a small window to let you mark
the task as completed, enter the completion
date and the amount of time it took to
complete. Once complete, your task will
vanish from view, but can be viewed by
changing the Task Status filter (see p.111).
Uncomplete
This button appears on completed tasks and
simply reverts back to an uncompleted status.
Pause
Marks the task as paused and banishes it to
a different compartment of limbo to the one
reserved for completed tasks. Useful if you
want to take a task off the boil for a while.
Like completed tasks, paused tasks will not
be visible unless you set the Task Status
filter to display them (see p.111).
Above: The currently selected task (top), is highlighted in pale blue and includes a few common functions
(Delete, Mark as Completed, Pause, and Open).
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Unpause
Appears on paused tasks and lets you release
them from purgatory, putting them back
into the regular list of uncompleted tasks.
Open
Opens the Add/Edit Task window (you can also do
this by clicking anywhere on the selected task).
Toolbar
Action
Delete
Deletes the selected tasks.
Complete/Uncomplete
Marks the selected tasks as complete. If
you have a completed task selected the
Uncomplete option becomes available.
Pause/Unpause
Pauses the selected tasks. If paused items are
selected the Unpause option becomes available.
Assign to
Lets you set the assigned owner
for the selected tasks.
Copy to
If you have more than one project on
the go, this feature allows you to copy
selected tasks across to them.
Add Tag
From here you can add tags, the submenu
presents a list of all the tags in
use throughout your project.
Add New Tag
Opens up a small dialogue box to create a
new tag and add it to the selected tasks
Remove Tag
From the sub-menu you can select tags
to remove from the current selection.
Remove All Tags
Clears the selected tasks of any tags
currently assigned to them.
Export
Saves all of the tasks currently viewable (i.e.
those visible under the current filter settings)
into a spreadsheet (choose between CSV or
Excel formats), which will then be available for
download from the Reports section (see p.18).
Export All Account Tasks
Same as above, but this option exports all of
your tasks (including completed and paused,
and ignoring any filter settings) from all of
the projects currently in your account.
Filter
The Filter panel gives you a few options for
selecting which tasks to display. If you set
multiple filters they have a compound effect
(acting as AND as opposed to AND/OR).
To reset the main panel and show all active tasks,
click Clear Filters at the bottom of the panel.
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Follower
Shows the tasks currently being followed
by the team member selected here.
Task Status
• Active: the default view; all your
uncompleted and unpaused tasks.
• Created: displays tasks created over a specific
time-span. Quick links let you specify Today,
This week, or This Month, or enter custom
dates into the From and To fields. These are
also present for the other options below.
• Due: filters tasks by their due date.
• Completed: shows only completed
tasks, you can filter these further by
entering the date span as above.
• Paused: shows only paused tasks, you can filter
these further by entering the date span as above.
Action Type
Filters your tasks by their specified
Action Type (see p.107).
Target
Filters tasks by page target (see
Pages, p.107). Options are:
• Has page target: any tasks with a
specified page target will be shown.
• No page target: only tasks without a page target.
• Page target contains: enter text into
the secondary box to add an extra layer
of detail to filtering by page target.
• Target is in page group: if you’re using page
groups (see p.19) this option shows those
tasks where the page target is part of the page
group selected from the secondary list.
Proposed
Filters tasks by proposed pages
(see p.107). Options are:
• Has page proposed: any tasks with a
specified proposed page will be shown.
• No page proposed: shows only
tasks without a proposed page.
• Page proposed contains: entering text
into the secondary box adds an extra layer
of detail to filtering by proposed page.
• Page proposed is in page group: if you’re using
page groups (see p.19) this option shows
those tasks where the proposed page is part of
the page group selected from the secondary list.
Sort
A menu here enables you to sort the items
in the main panel by the following criteria:
• Due date then priority
• Priority then due date
• Impact points (ascending)
• Impact points (descending)
When viewing tasks for your entire team with
All selected on the left panel (see below), a
further option becomes available—Group
by owner—which groups items together
based on the owner of each task.
Add Task
The ubiquitous Add Task button, opens up
the aforementioned Add/Edit Task window
for creation of new tasks (see p.106).
Search
Another way to filter the tasks displayed in the
main panel. Type any fragment or whole words
or phrases here and hit Return to show items
with that text in their title or description.
Left Panel
Project Team
The Project Team filter enables you to sort
tasks by the assigned owner, the number
of tasks assigned to each team member is
displayed to the right. Click on a name to see
their list of tasks in the main panel, or click
All to see all tasks across the entire team.
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Task Lists
Task lists can be selected in combination
with Project Team (above) to further filter
the main panel. You can select or deselect
multiple task lists by toggling them on and
off with a click.
Manage Task Lists
This button opens the Manage Task Lists
window, wherein you can delete or edit items
with the and buttons respectively. Any tasks assigned to a task list you delete will be reassigned to the ‘Miscellaneous’ list.
You can create custom task lists from the
Add New Task List link at the bottom of
the window.
For editing, deleting and creating task lists,
you can click the check box as an option to
implement the changes across all the projects
in your account.
All of the above options are also available
from Project Settings > Task Lists under the cog wheel button in the top right of the Navigation Bar (see p.15).
Tags
This area lets you filter the main panel by tag. For a more detailed overview of how this works, and of using tags in general, see p.9.
Manage tags
Opens the Manage Tags window, where
you can add, delete, or edit tags, as well
as get an overview of all the tags in use throughout your project and which kinds of assets they’re applied to.
Left: the left panel
Above: the Manage Task Lists window
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Right Panel
The right panel replicates all of the information contained within the Add/Edit Task window
(see p.106). Selecting any task in the main panel updates the right panel to display its data. The various tabs can be expanded or collapsed to
allow you to focus on the details you’re
interested in.
All of these elements are editable directly
from the right panel by hitting the Change
or Add links or Edit button wherever they appear. Some of these will expand in situ to a drop-down list, while others will simply open up the Add/Edit Task window and let you make your changes from there.
For a full run-down on all of these elements, see the description of the Add/Edit Task window on p.106.
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12/03/15 Linkdex Reference Manual • Contacts
CONTACTS
The Contacts section was built in collaboration with some of our
key clients, and is a powerful way to capture and manage all of your
contacts. Contacts is more than just a glorified address book, people
can be added directly from your research in other areas of the platform,
added to your campaigns and explored in the optional Networks section.
This section also acts as an essential resource for
the Networks section, where you can overlay your
contacts onto any network visualization, enabling
you to map out how your existing relationships
can help you connect to other key influencers.
Being able to build upon previous outreach
and research offers a great way to jumpstart
your campaigns. For example, you may
have a new client operating in an area you’ve
worked on campaigns in before. You can
reuse contacts that have been identified as
experts within a given sector such as Mommy
Bloggers or Electronic Gadgets from previous
projects and introduce these tried and
tested contacts to your client’s product.
Examples such as this highlight the need for
comprehensive tagging of your contacts—the
better your tags are, the easier it will be to
identify useful prospects for future campaign
outreach. For more on tagging, see p.9.
Most of the functionality associated with
contacts happens in other sections of the
platform, while the Contacts section itself
provides a hub for managing these entities.
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Creating contacts
There are a number of ways you can add contacts
to your list; from within this section you can
manually create a new contact from scratch with
the Add New Contact button on the toolbar
(see p.118), or upload in bulk from the Import
option under the Action button (see p.117).
Other areas of Linkdex enable you to discover
potential contacts and add them directly anywhere
you see the button. In Content 360, where an
author has been identified from web page, you’ll
find the option over on the right panel under the
Authors tab. In the expanded page view of Link
Data (see p.76), you’ll also find the Add Author
button next to any pages that have author details.
The Authors section is a great place to search
and assess content creators as campaign
prospects, its Entity Search page (see p.82)
provides a prominent Create Contact button
for immediate saving any useful contacts to
your list.
Finally, the Networks section lets you
create contacts from existing people in
your network, and also generates useful
suggestions for other potential contacts
under the Suggestions tab (see p.94).
Once you have contacts in place, you
can assign ownership to team members,
add them to campaigns, and add them
to your networks (see p.117).
Main Panel
Select all box
Checking this box will select all main panel items in
the current view, for performing actions on in bulk.
Contact entity
Each contact entity is displayed in the main panel
as a discrete unit, and can be filtered and sorted a
number of ways from the toolbar and left panel.
Each contact on the main panel shows basic
information—their name, domain URL, any
assigned tags, and, if the contact has another
team member, or is set to Do Not Contact
(see p.118) an orange or red Do Not Contact
label will appear.
Select a contact by clicking it. It will highlight
in blue and its full details will be available for
perusal and editing in the right panel.
Your currently selected contact will also
show Delete and Add To Campaign
buttons along the bottom.
Left Panel
Tags
This area lets you filter the main panel by tag,
for a more detailed overview of how this works,
and of using tags in general, see p.9.
Below: main panel items in Contacts, showing a selected item
(highlighted in blue) with Delete and add To Campaign options.
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Manage tags
This button opens the Manage Tags window,
where you can add, delete, or edit tags,
as well as get an overview of all of your
tags in use throughout your project and
which kinds of assets they’re applied to.
Toolbar
Action
As with other Linkdex sections, the Action
button contains some of the most useful
functions, Some of these functions are
already accessible in the buttons on the
main panel, but can also be found here for
performing in bulk (by selecting all from the
selection box in the table’s header bar), or
on multiple individually selected items.
Add to campaign
Adds the selected contacts to the campaign
of your choice. A pop-up window lets you
assign an owner, campaign, and priority level,
along with any tags and other details you like
to add.
Delete
Permanently deletes the selected
contacts. Unlike in some other sections,
there is no undelete available here.
Add to network
Contacts with Twitter profiles can be added
to your networks from here (if you have
Networks activated (see p.91). A dropdown
menu in the pop-up lets you select from
one of your existing (and default) networks,
or you can select Create New Network and
enter a name in the resulting text field.
Change owner
Quickly reassign ownership of the selected
contacts to a different team member. To set
them to Anyone or Do Not Contact you’ll have
to work on them individually from the Ownership
and Status tab on right panel (see p.120).
Change status
Select between Proposed, Active and
Iced. As well as being an extra level of
detail about your relationship with the
contact, this information is filterable
from the Filter button (see p.118).
Add tag
Select from a list of the tags already
in use in this section.
Add new tag
Opens up a small dialogue box to create a
new tag and add it to the selected contacts.
Remove tag
From the sub-menu you can select tags
to remove from the current selection.
Remove all tags
Clears the selected contacts of any
tags currently assigned to them.
Import
Contacts can be bulk uploaded from
here in CSV format. Contact support
or ask your Account Manager if you
need any help getting started, or for
advice on the best approach the
first time you use this feature.
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Filter
Some useful options for filtering your contacts can
be found here. As you make changes to the Filter
panel, you’ll see the main panel update behind it.
Campaign
Three drop-down menus here let you select
various campaign criteria to filter by:
• Campaign: the actual campaign
any contacts are assigned to.
• State: the state of your progress with any
contacts in any campaigns (see p.128).
• Status: the current status of your relationship
with any contacts in your campaigns (not to be
confused with the Contact Status from this actual
section, there’s a filter for that lower down).
Profile detail
A series of boxes here let you filter your
contacts for name, address, various social
media profile types, and other information.
The drop-down menu above these boxes lets
you modify the selection between Any, Has
Profile Data, and Does Not Have Profile.
Ownership
Two drop-down menus operate in series to display
only contacts with the appropriate ownership
status. The first menu involves who can get in
touch with the contact, and has 3 options:
• Anyone: effectively nulls this menu, the
2nd menu (below) will be the sole filter.
• Owner only: displays contacts who have a
specific team member (including yourself)
assigned as an owner. Incidentally, if you’ve
personally set a contact to Do Not Contact (see
below), you are actually the effective owner, so
these items will also be shown with this option.
• Do not contact: only contacts set specifically
to Do Not Contact will be shown (as
opposed to those you can’t contact because
someone else in your team is the owner).
The second menu along distills the results
from the first menu even further, relating to
actual ownership. You can select different
team members, yourself (‘me’), or Any Owner
to effectively null this part of the filter.
Status
Choose which status types you’d
like displayed (see p.120).
Name
Lets you filter for contacts that you have an actual
name for (or at least, contacts who have first and
last name data added, regardless of whether or
not they’re using this for their name, business
name, or something else. You can also set the
filter for contacts where no name data is present.
Add new contact
Assuming you want to create a new contact from
scratch within this section as opposed to adding
it from your investigations in other sections, you
can do that here. Clicking the button opens up a
window with all of the fields and details discussed
within this chapter. You can make multiple
entries for domains, emails, and any other parts
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where you see the + sign to the right. Click the
+ to create extra data fields. The entries are split
across 3 tabs: Contact Details, Ownership and
Status, and Business and Payment. The data
fields are split between these tabs in a different
order to what you see on the right panel, but it’s
all there, and if you don’t enter full details at this
stage you can add it later from the right panel.
Add task
The Add Task button appears on almost every
page of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut
for creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a complete
overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Search
Use the Search field to filter your contacts
for specific text. As well as the contact’s
name, you can use this to search for any
text anywhere in the contact’s details—web
address, email, telephone number and so on.
Right Panel
The right panel reproduces the information entered
from the Add New Contact toolbar button (see
p.118), and you can also enter or modify this
information anywhere you see the button or
an Add link.
At the top left of the panel you’ll see the contact’s
photo pulled in from their Google+ profile, if they
have one, a placeholder avatar will be used if not.
Next to the photo is a large Add To Campaign
button. Clicking this brings up a small
window where you can assign an owner,
campaign, and priority level, along with
any tags and other details you like to add.
See p.123 for more on campaigns.
Immediately under this button, for contacts with a
Klout profile you’ll find their Klout Score; a number
between 1-100 that represents their influence
according to Klout, for more on how this is worked
Above: the three panels of the Add New
Contact window. Most of this information
can be entered later on via the right panel.
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out, visit https://klout.com/corp/score. Clicking
the number opens their Klout profile in a new tab.
Contact details
Editable details here include the
contact’s email address, phone number,
Skype ID, and Paypal details.
Ownership and status
Owner
Ownership can be assigned here, basically the
team member that is okayed to contact this
person directly. As well as individuals on your
team, you can select Anyone or Do Not Contact.
If you’re not the owner of a contact, or if Do
Not Contact is selected here, an orange or
red label (respectively) will appear on their
details in the main panel indicating as such.
Contact status
Select between Proposed, Active and Iced. As
well as being an extra level of detail about your
relationship with the contact, this information is
filterable from the Filter button (see p.118).
Social
You’ll find this area populated with icons linking
to any social media profiles Linkdex found when
the contact was created (if it was generated
from another part of the platform, Link Data,
for example). If you know of others you’d like
to insert, click the Add link on the right.
Domains
As above, you can add to or edit any
domains here. Clicking the link opens
the URL in a new browser tab.
RSS
Add to or edit any known RSS feeds associated
with this contact’s output. Clicking the link
opens the RSS feed in a new browser tab.
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Recent tweets
If the contact has an associated Twitter
account, this tab appears, populated
with their 10 most recent tweets.
Campaigns
Colored labels here link to any campaigns
the contact has been added to. Clicking
the link jumps you over to that campaign
in the Campaigns section (see p.123).
Networks
Purple labels here indicate any of
your networks the contact has been
added to (see Networks, p.91).
Tags
You can add or edit tags from here. Any tags
already in use in this section will autocomplete
as you type. You can also create new tags by
typing them straight in and hitting Return.
Address
Here you can find business/publication details
along with a physical address, as entered
under the Business and Payment tab of the
Create Contact window (see p.118).
Notes
All actions performed on the contact are timelined
and annotated here as team members update and
add information. You can also use this section to
enter any details about your actions or instigate a
conversational thread with other team members.
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CAMPAIGNS
The Campaigns section provides a structured approach to conducting
and managing your outreach campaigns. It acts as a collaboration and
reporting platform for your link building and online PR teams, allowing
you to manage multiple promotions in an organized manner.
Google is placing increased importance
not only on where links are coming from,
but also the authors advocating those links.
For outreach campaigns it’s incredibly
advantageous to be able to monitor who and
what contributed to online visibility, for your
competitors’ campaigns as well as your own.
The original idea behind this section was to take
the insights relating to link prospects from the
Authors (see p.81) and Link Data (see p.73)
sections, and make this information actionable
and manageable, allowing prospective backlinking
entities to be added to the system and accessed
by the whole team, and making it as easy as
possible to collate the people you would like
to approach when promoting your website.
Key to this functionality is the way the Campaigns
section interacts with other sections of the platform.
For example, the Link Data section is a great source
of Business Intelligence for SEO, PR, Social Media
and Display teams when planning which entities
they should plan into campaigns. From a linking
domain or page, you can hit the button to
add it to a campaign. A window pops up, allowing
you to allocate ownership to a member of your
team, select the appropriate campaign, set priority,
and add tags.
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In Link Data’s expanded view (see p.76), you can
see any authors identified in association with the
backlink. To get these authors into your campaigns
you’ll have to add them to your contacts, by hitting
the button. You’ll then be able to add them to
your campaign from the Contacts section (see
p.119).
In fact, authors can be added to your contacts
from all over the platform, primarily through
Entity Search (see p.82) and the Networks
section (see p.91), which both provide
unique ways to hunt down the originators of
influential content, and provide prominent
Create Contact buttons where needed.
The various panels that make up the Campaigns
section are laid out to give you a complete
overview of your outreach, from your team’s
activities, to which the status of link relationships
and full details of any links achieved.
Main Panel
You can create two different kinds of entity;
contacts and domains. The differences are
slight and the two can contain more or less
the same information (domains also contain a
contact and vice-versa, for example). It’s useful
to be able to make the distinction though,
for sorting by group, and in case you have
one piece of the puzzle, but not the other.
Each entity is displayed in the main panel as a
discrete unit, and can be filtered and sorted a
number of ways from the toolbar and left panel.
Select an item by clicking it. It will highlight
in blue and full details will be available for
perusal and editing in the right panel.
Clicking an already selected entity (or doubleclicking
one not currently selected) opens
the Manage Links window, for detailed entry
of any backlink information (see p.125).
Selection box
These check boxes can be used to select individual
or multiple items for performing actions on from
the toolbar. Because there’s no table header in
Campaigns, you’ll notice the Select All box at the
top is actually built in to the toolbar (see p.126).
Contact
Clicking the contact’s name takes you to
their full details in the Contacts section.
Domain
Clicking the domain link opens up a new
browser tab and takes you there.
Labels: campaign, state,
status, owner, tags
Over on the right, you’ll see some colored labels
showing the following, where appropriate:
ORANGE: the campaign this entity is assigned to
YELLOW: the entity’s current state (see p.128)
GREY: the entity’s current status (see p.129)
BLUE: the owner assigned to
the entity (see p.118)
MINT: any tags assigned to the entity
Priority indicator
Immediately under the selection box you’ll see a
color strip running up the side of the entity. This
indicates the assigned priority, as set when the item
was originally created (see Importance, p.127),
or from the Details tab on the right panel (see
p.129). The color coding here is as you’d expect:
Tip: To find a competitor website’s most
socialized content, go to the Content 360
section (see p.57) and sort by Ext. Links or
one of the social shares columns. Set the filter
for pages that have authors and you’ll find a
wealth of potential contacts. As with Authors
and Link Data, you can add these authors to
your contacts (and subsequently to your
campaigns) by hitting the button next to
their names in the Authors tab on the right
panel.
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• Red: high priority
• Green: normal priority
• Gray: low priority
Manage links window
The Manage Links window is where you
can keep a comprehensive log of any link
relationships you’ve achieved at contact level.
Details of the linking domain, target page,
anchor text and page position of the link are
all available, as well as a separate section to
log the associated costs of any paid links.
At the top of the window you’ll see the
entity’s name or URL, along with their
state (published, pending, and so on).
Linking domain/page (from)
Enter the URL of the linking page.
Target domain/page (to)
The page on your site that the link points to.
Clicking the button next to a URL field opens
that web page in a new browser tab.
Anchor
If you know the anchor text of the
backlink you can enter it here.
Page position
You can even enter the position of the
link in the content of the page (first
paragraph, body, site-wide, and so on).
Published
A check box here lets you tick any links that have
been published. You can also delete any row with
the button.
Add another link
Click here to add extra rows for entering more
links from the same page if you need them.
Add another set of links
Use this to enter links from another page in
the same domain or another domain.
Live date/end date
Click the buttons to set the date your
backlink went live, and, when it ended (these
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are optional—you can leave them blank if
you like).
Initial cost/recurring cost/repeat
If this is a paid link, you can add details of any
associated cost and payment schedule here.
Archive
Archives the entity and removes it from your
main panel view. If working on an archived
item, this button becomes Unarchive and
reverts the item back to its previous state.
Toolbar
Select all box
Checking this box will select all main panel items in
the current view, for performing actions on in bulk.
Action
The Actions under this button can be executed
on any single or multiple selected items.
Delete
Deletes the selected entities.
Archive/unarchive
These options toggle the state of the selected
items. Archived items are viewable by selecting
them from the State tab on the left panel.
States can also be edited (with three more
options: Draft, Pending, and Publish) from
the State & Status tab on the right panel.
Set owner
Lets you choose a team member as the assigned
owner for the selected entity in this campaign.
Set campaign
If you have more than one campaign on
the go, this feature allows you to move
selected entities across to them.
Copy to campaign
As above, but this option creates a duplicate in the
destination campaign and leaves the original intact.
Add tag
The sub-menu here presents a list of all
the tags in use throughout your project.
Add new tag
Opens up a small dialogue box to create a
new tag and add it to the selected entities.
Remove tag
From the sub-menu you can select tags
to remove from the current selection.
Remove all tags
Clears the selected entities of any
tags currently assigned to them.
Import
This feature allows you to import link data into
campaigns. Contact your Account Manager
or Support for advice on the different options
available and the best practice to use.
Export
Saves all of the currently viewable entities (i.e.
those visible under the current Filter settings)
into a spreadsheet (choose between CSV or
Excel formats), which will then be available for
download from the Reports section (see p.18).
Filter
This button lets you filter items by their status,
as set when creating the entity, or later on
from the State & Status tab on right panel.
Sort
Allows sorting of your entities from
top to bottom in the main panel.
• Order by: choose between Most
Recent and Importance.
• Group by: breaks the list up into groups
based on Owner (the assigned owner from
your team, although you’ll need to have All
selected from the Project Team list on the
left panel to see more than just the selected
owner’s items), or by Contact/Domain.
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Add contact to campaign
Opens a window for quickly adding a contact
entity to the current campaign without
jumping over to the Contacts section. If
you need to go back and edit these later,
just select them in the main panel and
change their details in the right panel.
Contact
Hit the button to open a menu from
which you can select anyone currently in
your contacts list.
Domain
The linking domain associated with this entity.
Assign
Assign yourself or another team member
as the owner of this entity.
Campaign
Select the campaign this entity relates to.
Importance
Low, Normal, or High. Entities can be
sorted by Importance (see p.126),
and are color-coded accordingly.
Tags
Hit the edit button to add tags to your
entity. As you type, you’ll see an optional
autocomplete based on the names of any
tags currently applied in this section, or in
the Tasks section. Anything not in either
will generate a new tag name. If you want
to apply tags present in other sections of the
platform, you can do it from the toolbar
(Action > Add Tag).
Details
Type any relevant extra information here.
When you’re done you can hit Save, Cancel,
or Save And Add Links Now to open the
Manage Links window after saving.
Add domain to campaign
This option presents identical options to the
Add Contact To Campaign button (above), but
treats the resulting entity as a domain asset.
Add task
This button appears on almost every page
of Linkdex, giving you a quick shortcut for
creating new tasks and assigning them to
yourself or other team members. For a
complete overview of tasks, see p.105.
Search
Enter your search term and the main
panel will display items containing that
text in their contact or domain names.
Tagging your campaigns
Depending on your role, you may find it useful
to assign them based on what you’re focusing
on at the time, for example, ‘Nov 2014’, ‘Q4’,
and so on. Other useful approaches are to tag
contacts by role (e.g. ‘Speaker’, ‘Blogger’, etc),
by industry, or by importance or influence.
Ensure your contacts are as well tagged
as possible for easy filtering, making the
outreach process as efficient as possible.
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Left Panel
The left panel offers a multitude of robust filtering
options beyond those offered from the toolbar.
As you select options from the Project Team, Campaigns,
and State tabs the main panel will update to show all of the
targeted domains and contacts attributed to those criteria.
Project team
A list of all the members of your team, along with
the number of entities they currently have assigned
to them. Click each member to see their contacts
within the currently selected campaign.
Campaigns
A list of currently active campaigns in your project. Click on
each to jump between them. A number to the right indicates
the number of contacts/entities associated with each.
Add campaign
To create a new campaign, just click here and enter a name.
Your new campaign will be selectable from the list above.
Manage campaigns
Opens up a window where you can quickly edit the
name of, or permanently delete a campaign.
State
Gives you a quick glance at how many of the entities
across all of your campaigns are currently at which state:
• Draft: this is automatically assigned
to any new entities created.
• Pending: the entity has been contacted and seems
to be in the process of writing about you.
• Published: the entity has published
material about you online.
• Archive: any completed items you don’t
want to delete completely.
Click any one to filter the main panel to
display entities with that state.
Tags
Tags in campaigns behave much the same way as in other
sections. From the left menu, you can select or exclude multiple
tags at once. For a full run-down on tag use, see p.9.
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Right Panel
Target
Your campaign entity’s primary contact
and domain information.
Contact
Clicking the contact’s name takes you to their
full details in the Contacts section. Any available
social media links are also shown here with small,
clickable icons that open a new browser tab and
take you to their profile page. For domain assets,
the contact will appear 2nd on the list and be
editable from the button, with a drop-down
menu populated with all your saved contacts.
Domain
Clicking the domain link opens up a new browser
tab and takes you there. In contact assets the
domain will appear 2nd on the list and be editable
by clicking the button.
State & status
State
The button lets you update the state of
your outreach to this contact. Selecting Publish
automatically opens the Manage Links window
for logging details of the published content.
Status
Select an appropriate status from the menu
to help you keep track of where you’re at
in your negotiations with this entity.
Manage links
The number to the left shows how many links have
been logged for this entity. Hitting the button
opens up the Manage Links window for adding
more (see p.125).
Details
Type any relevant extra information here.
Link campaign
You can move the selected item to one of your
other campaigns from the drop-down menu here.
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Owner
The assigned owner of this item within the campaign. It can be changed to another team member from the drop-down menu.
Priority
This is the same as the Importance setting available when you add a new contact (see p.127). Click High, Normal, or Low to change the priority for the selected item.
Tags
Add or edit your tags from here by clicking the button.
Notes
All actions performed on a main panel item are timelined and annotated here as team members update and add information. You can also use this section to enter any details about your actions or instigate a conversational thread with other team members.
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DASHBOARD
Dashboards can be constructed from a suite of modular widgets,
allowing you to compile and display all kinds of campaign data from
other areas of the platform in one place. You can use dashboards to
report progress to clients, track your team’s tasks or even oversee your
website’s performance with easy-to-understand tables, graphs and charts.
You can create as many dashboards as you
need, selecting from over 40 powerful widgets
to fully customize the data you display.
Different dashboards can be used to monitor
different kinds of information for different
users, and can also be output to PDF reports,
either manually or to an automated schedule.
These reports can easily be customized with
your agency logo and colors, making it easy
to stay on brand in client-facing situations.
To get you started, we provide a demo dashboard
for you to play around with. Feel free to make
changes, add widgets or delete it altogether.
Main Panel
The main panel displays all of the widgets for your
current Dashboard. You can add more by clicking
Show Widget Buttons on the toolbar (see p.133).
There are currently 43 to choose from, broken
down into the 10 categories listed along the
top (Analytics, Rank Tracking, Link Analysis,
etc). Clicking a category reveals its widgets,
or you can click All to see all of them at the
same time. To find out more about a widget,
hover your mouse pointer over it for a short
pop-up description of what it does.
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To add a widget to the bottom of your
dashboard, click its button and complete
the settings in the ensuing window.
Once on the dashboard, each widget has its own
title bar, and is named by default with the type of
widget it is and the domain(s), keywords and/or
tags it’s displaying results for. The title and all of a
widget’s other settings can be edited from the
button at its bottom-right.
At the bottom-left of each widget you’ll
see its title again, and the date at which
the chart or table was generated.
Arranging widgets
As well as the Edit button in the bottom right of
each widget, there’s a button to delete it from
the current dashboard, and an array of buttons for
rearranging the widgets on display.
move up move down
move to the top move to the bottom
Reports are generated in the same sequence
as the widgets appear on the Dashboard,
so by rearranging them, you’ll also be
rearranging the order of your report.
Notes
Above these buttons, you can click
Show Notes to reveal a text field where
you can add annotations or establish
a dialogue with other team members.
Once you’ve entered your message, click
Add Comment and it’ll appear on the left.
Multiple notes are listed in reverse date order
These notes are purely for internal discussion and
will not appear in any final PDF reports, for that, you
can add one of the Notes widgets (see p.140).
Extra controls for graphs
On some widgets (mostly the graph-based
ones), you may notice a button. Clicking this
presents a few options for printing the graph, or
downloading it in a selection of popular graphic
formats (jpeg, png, pdf, or svg).
You can also click on the various items
in a graph’s legend to toggle those items
on or off on the actual graph.
Other graph functionality includes the ability
to hover the pointer over a the graph itself
to see summary data for that particular point
in time for each of the tracked items.
Left Panel
The left panel presents a simple list of all your
dashboards. Click to select one and the main panel
will display accordingly. Click the button to
rename, or to delete.
Add dashboard
To create a new dashboard with an alternate set of
widgets for analysis, simply click the Add Dashboard
button at the bottom of the list, and enter a name.
The Based On drop-down lets you use one of
your existing dashboards as a template, useful
if, for example you want to populate it with a
similar set of widgets just with different settings.
To start with a clean slate, select Blank.
Above: the full range of widgets available on the Dashboard.
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Toolbar
From here you can add widgets, create or schedule
reports, view your current reports or create a new
actionable task for yourself or a team member.
Show widget buttons
Click here to reveal a list of widgets you can
add to your dashboards. There are currently
43 to choose from, and these are collated
into a series of categories, listed along the
top (Analytics, Rank Tracking, Link Analysis,
etc). Clicking through the list reveals
different arrays of widgets (with a couple,
such as Competitor Detective, straddling
multiple categories). Alternately you can
click All to see all 43 at the same time.
Clicking on a widget adds it to the bottom
of your current dashboard and pops up a
window so that you can adjust its settings.
A full description of each widget, arranged by
category, can be found later on in this chapter.
Report configuration
Your dashboards can be output in PDF format,
either manually, or on a regular schedule. This can
all be controlled, and the PDFs appearance finetuned
from here. See p.142 for more details.
View report
This button jumps you over to the Reports section
of the platform, a repository for all your reports
and exported data. Assuming you’ve output a
report from the Dashboard, this is where you’ll
find it. See p.18 for more on the Reports area.
Add task
A shortcut for creating new Tasks and assigning
them to yourself or other team members. For a
complete overview of tasks in Linkdex, see p.105.
Widgets
Common widget options
Many of the widget available to the dashboard,
although different in the kinds of information
they present and how they present it, often
share similar setting options for common
attributes such as the time-frame of charts,
the domains selected and so on. In order
to avoid too much repetition in the following
pages, the most common of these settings
are described below, with any more esoteric
options unique to one or a handful of widgets
being discussed under the appropriate widget.
Title
At the top of the window, the title is set by default
to the widget’s function and, where appropriate,
the domain or other data it’s acting upon. You can
change this to whatever you like by tapping .
Time frame
Specify the number of days to display results for
(last 30, 60, 90 days and so on), or a specific date
range by selecting the From/To option, and clicking
the dates to change them on the pop-up calendar.
Show summary boxes
Summary boxes appear at the top of most
widgets, giving you an overview of the key data
contained in the chart, table or graph. They
appear as rectangles on the dashboard, and as
rather fetching circles in the PDF report. You’ll be
able to switch each of these on or off individually
with the check boxes under this option.
A drop-down menu lets you select Right Of Title
or Below title. This doesn’t appear to do anything
on screen but actually changes the position of the
summary boxes when the report is output to PDF.
Show changes/Show summary changes
Color-codes the summary boxes (above) green or
red to denote an upward or downward trend and
details the amount of change (if any) underneath the
main figure. It also switches the amount of change
indicators in certain table columns on and off.
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Chart previous period
This option superimposes data for the same
date range from the previous time period.
So, for example, on a graph spanning a 90-
day period, May 12th’s result will appear as a
different color in the August 10th position.
Show conversion value
Based on your own analytics metrics, this
option can add an extra summary box for
Goals, Revenue, Transactions, or AOV.
Rank tracked domain/indexed
domain/crawled domain
Select the domain you’d like the widget to display
results for. Some comparison widgets require you
to select multiple domains, which you can toggle
on or off from a list with a single click, others
allow you to select only one from a drop-down.
Ranking configuration
Select the ranking configuration you’d like
the widget to return results for. For more
on ranking configurations, see p.42.
Show number of rows
For table-based widgets, this option pares down the
results shown to only the top 5, top 10, and so on.
Keyword tag
For widgets that extrapolate their information from
your tracked keywords (see Rankings, p.31),
and assuming you collated some or all of those
keywords into tag groups (see p.10), you can
use this option to select groups of keywords (by
their assigned tags) that the widget will use.
Start on new page
This acts as a page break when the report is output
to PDF—the widget in question will start on a new
page, even if there’s room for it on the previous page.
Only show influential
On some Link Analysis widgets, this option pares
the results down to only those backlinks deemed
to come from influential sources (i.e. those with
an influence score of 4 or more, see p.76).
Tasks
Tasks
A simple status report showing at a glance how
many tasks are active, created, completed or
overdue for all users. Underneath the main figure
for each, you can see how much this amount
has gone up or down by in the set time interval,
allowing your to spot trends in productivity.
The User drop-down lets you specify all users
or focus in on individual team members
Analytics
Actual traffic
This line graph shows your traffic split between
natural, paid, and referred search traffic,
giving you insight into how performance is
changing over time. To function properly
you’ll need to have set up integration of
Google Analytics with Linkdex (see p.7).
Natural Search Visits Paid Search Visits Referring Domain Visits events
21. Dec 28. Dec 4. Jan 11. Jan
0
2
4
6
8
10
Google Yahoo Bing events
30. Nov 7. Dec 14. Dec 21. Dec 28. Dec 4. Jan 11. Jan 18. Jan
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
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Traffic by search engine
Another line graph. This one illustrates the
amount of natural search traffic the major
search engines are providing over the specified
time-frame. As above, this widget requires you
to integrate Google Analytics with Linkdex.
Rank tracking
Depending on your needs, you’ll find this one of
the most useful sets of widgets within the suite.
Ranking by position
A bar chart showing how many keywords (by tag
group) the selected domain is ranking for at each
position, along with an indication of how much
this has changed by over the selected time-frame.
Ranking by keyword
A table showing which keywords are ranked
where, and any changes in the set time frame.
Keywords can be selected by tag group, with
optional columns for Universal Results, Estimated
Search Volume, and CPC. The table can be ordered
by rank, estimated traffic, or search volume.
Average rankings—single domain
A line graph showing average ranking for any of
your selected keywords in the top 30 search
results over the selected time frame for your
primary domain. You can select multiple ranking
configurations to appear on the same graph
for comparison across a variety of territories.
Keywords can be selected by tag group.
Average rankings—multiple domains
A line graph showing average ranking for any
of your selected keywords in the top 30 search
results over the selected time frame for the
selected domains. A different colored line will
appear for each selected domain that ranks.
Universal results profiles
A bar chart representing the number of your
keywords triggering universal results (brand,
Top 1
30+
Ranking
Average Rankings For Google – UK Average Rankings For Google, Brighton events
25 Jan 1 Feb
5
10
15
20
25
30
Top 1
30+
Ranking
www.prospects.ac.uk: Google – UK www.leemasondesign.com: Google – UK
www.andrewclare.com: Google – UK identica.co.uk: Google – UK
www.clickcreativedesign.co.uk: Google – UK events
25 Jan 1 Feb
5
10
15
20
25
30
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places, shopping, news, video, and images), along
with any changes in the selected time-frame.
2 domain ranking report
A table comparing keyword rank (and rank
change within the set time-frame) against search
volume for the two domains you select.
Universal results, share & value
This table collates search results for different
categories (Brand, Places, Shopping, News,
Video, and Images) for you and your competitors,
and helps you assess the value of these results,
with columns calculating Estimated Traffic,
Media Value, and % of Total Media Value.
Competitor detective
Looks at your tracked keywords and ranking
configuration, and allows you to discover which
domains have the highest ranking performance.
When you first start using Linkdex you’ll find this
an invaluable tool for identifying competitor
domains. Three columns show how many of your
keywords each domain ranks for in the top 3, top
10, and top 30 SERP positions. Under the Domain
Analysis column you can start analyzing a domain
to gather competitor intelligence and benchmark
link, content, rankings, traffic, click share and value
performance by clicking Start. Domains already
being analyzed will display Active in this column,
while larger, catch-all sites such as Wikipedia
or Pinterest which aren’t worth consideration
for SEO purposes will display Not Indexed.
Competitor detective pro
This is a more detailed version of Competitor
Detective with extra columns for Estimated Traffic,
Estimated Media Value, and % of Total Media Value.
Rankings
A line graph showing the ranking position
over time for the selected keywords and
ranking configuration. You can select
keywords individually or by tag group.
Top 1
30+
Ranking
freelance graphic designer magazine designer graphic designer
graphic designers graphics designer graphic designs events
30 Nov 7 Dec 14 Dec 21 Dec 28 Dec 4 Jan 11 Jan 18 Jan 25 Jan 1 Feb 8 Feb 15 Feb
5
10
15
20
25
30
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Multi domain rankings
A line graph, with one line per selected domain,
showing its highest ranking for any of the
selected keywords over time. You can select
keywords individually or by tag group.
Market share/value
Another of the most useful sets within the suite.
Rank, traffic, value
Takes all of your analyzed domains and ranks them
according to how many of your tracked keywords
they rank for in the top 3 and top 10, the estimated
traffic generated as a result, and the estimated
media value and percentage of total media value
that traffic could generate. Any changes since the
beginning of the selected time-frame are indicated
with up or down arrows and the actual amount.
Universal results, share & value
This is a duplicate of the same widget
appearing under Rank Tracking (see p.136).
Competitor detective pro
This is a duplicate of the same widget
appearing under Rank Tracking (see p.136).
Share of search
Like the Share Of Search page from the
Rankings section, this widget creates a pie
chart showing the proportion of a search
market each of the selected domains achieves
for the selected keyword tag groups.
Content
Indexed pages
A line graph showing, over time, how
many pages Google reports having
Top 1
30+
Ranking
www.andrewclare.com www.leemasondesign.com www.4050media.co.uk
identica.co.uk www.prospects.ac.uk events
30 Nov 7 Dec 14 Dec 21 Dec 28 Dec 4 Jan 11 Jan 18 Jan 25 Jan 1 Feb 8 Feb 15 Feb
5
10
15
20
25
30
www.leemasondesign.com: 7.5 %
www.prospects.ac.uk: 5.2 %
others: 87.3 %
clickcreativedesign.co.uk events
2. Nov
9. Nov
16. Nov
23. Nov
30. Nov
7. Dec
14. Dec
21. Dec
28. Dec
4. Jan
11. Jan
18. Jan
25. Jan
1. Feb
8. Feb
15. Feb
0
200
400
600
800
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indexed (using the site:domain.com
command) for the selected domains.
Ranked pages & value
This table shows, across all your analyzed domains,
how many pages are ranking for the selected
keyword tag groups, and the estimated traffic
and media value for the associated content.
Link analysis
Link contents
Bar chart showing how many domains are
backlinking to you and your competitors, along
with the total number of links and changes over
time. Clicking on the bars takes you to the Link
Data section to review those links in more detail.
Links by site type
A bar chart illustrating the types of sites (blogs,
news sites, wikis, and so on) linking to you and your
competitors, with performance changes in the
selected time-frame shown to the right of each bar.
Link anchors
A table compiling the anchor text of all backlinks
pointing at the selected domain, ranked by the
number of times each occurs, and showing
any changes in the allotted time-frame.
Link destinations
This table compiles the target URLs of all backlinks
pointing to the selected domain, ranked by the
number of times each occurs, and showing
any changes in the allotted time-frame.
Links by influence
A bar chart illustrating the proportions of
backlinks to a domain which come from
high and low Influence domains.
Text, image, follow type
What proportion of backlinks to the selected
domain are text or images, no-follow or dofollow?
This bar chart breaks it down for you.
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Links by TLD (Top Level Domain)
This bar chart shows how many backlinks to
a domain come from each top level domain
(.com, .co.uk, .org, .net and so on).
Links by site type (alt)
An alternate version of the Links by Site Type
widget (above) offering a vertical bar layout.
Site optimization
Summary report
A single table summarizing everything from
onsite issues to performance metrics like
traffic, links, rankings and conversions.
Int & ext. link spread
The X (horizontal) axis shows pages sorted by the
number of internal links they have. It’s common for
the most important pages (usually the homepage,
for example) to have the most internal links. The
two (vertical) Y axes plot internal and external links
against these pages. Internal links are represented
by a blue line, with external links peppered across
the graph as red dots. Good site structures often
show a gently dropping internal link curve with
diminishing page importance. External links should
be ideally spread widely throughout a site.
Int. broken link finder
This widget reports on the internal broken links
found during a site crawl as reported by the Content
360 section (see p.67). Use it on your own
site to find and resolve issues with broken links.
Ext. broken link finder
Reports on any broken external links found
during a site crawl as reported by the Content
360 section (see p.67). Use it on your own
site to clean up broken links, or on third-party
websites to suggest your own content as relevant
replacements for any broken links identified.
Internal Links
External Links
Internal Links External Links
0 5 10 15
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1
3
7
20
55
148
403
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Redirect & canonical use
Allows you to compare whether and how often redirects and canonicals are being used on the sites we’ve crawled within Content 360. You can select multiple sites for comparison.
Int. link comparison
Select any two domains from your competitor list and compare anchor text of internal links within these sites. Anchors are sorted by the number of times they occur throughout each site.
Ext. link comparison
Compares any two domains from your competitor list for anchor text of external backlinks. Anchors are sorted by the number of times they occur throughout each site.
Link building
New link monitoring
Documents any new backlinks found for the selected indexed domain in the last 30 days.
The URL column links directly to the page with the backlink, while other columns show the number (if any) of your other tracked competitors the page links to, the linking domain’s influence score (see p.76), and the anchor text of the actual backlink.
You may find it useful to add one instance of this widget for your own site and one for each of your competitors.
Basic campaign reporting
Lists full details of any successful outreach marked as Published from the selected assignee within the selected campaign within the selected time-frame, along with any associated initial and recurring costs.
Notes
The notes facility for individual widgets (see p.132) works well for hosting internal discussions with other team members, but resulting notes will not appear on your PDF reports. To add text to your reports, you have two options…
Heading & texts
This widget allows you to add simple, plain text notes.
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Rich text notes
This behaves more like a basic word-processor, allowing you a greater depth of formatting control, including font, size, colors, bullets and lists, and inserting images, among other things.
Reports
These widgets can be inserted to affect the appearance of any reports output from your dashboard.
Page break
Inserts a page break before the next item on your dashboard. Essentially this is the same as checking the ‘Start on new page’ box in the options of the following widget, except that here you have the option to switch page orientation between landscape and portrait formats; useful if a wide chart is followed by a tall list of tabular data.
If a page break is accidentally inserted ahead of a widget already set to start on a new page, the resulting report will ignore the page break (while honoring any page orientation changes) in order to avoid outputting an empty page.
Image
Here you can upload an image and set its horizontal alignment on the page. If you want
to add a logo for branding purposes or an
image for subsection pages within your report,
here’s where you can do that. Click Choose File and browse to the image on your computer (up to 5MB in size), then click Upload. Other options let you set the position on the page (Justification: left, right, or center), and the ability to add (and optionally display) a title.
All
Click here to display all of the widgets options available. Currently this also displays a widget not listed in any of the other categories:
Multi-domain rank, traffic, value
This widget looks a lot like the Rank Tracking page from the Rankings section. You can use it for a single domain only, in which case it can return rank, universal results, ranking page, estimated traffic, and search volume. You can also select multiple domains for comparison purposes, in which case only search volume and rank are displayed.
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Reports
One of the great features of Dashboards is that you can output them to a professional looking, easily customizable PDF, either manually or on a repeating schedule, and have this emailed to whoever needs to see it.
With multiple dashboards in operation, you can have very different dashboards set up, for example, marketing teams, clients, and project managers and have these sent out to the appropriate individuals automatically at regular intervals.
To set this up, hit the Report Configuration button on the toolbar. A window will pop up with 2 tabs; Report Configuration, for setting the appearance of your PDF report, and Schedule Report And Email, which does exactly that.
To generate your report, click Generate Now. It will appear in the Reports section (look under the cog wheel in the top right of the navigation bar, see p.18). A notification email will be sent to you as soon as the report is ready. Or if you’re just adjusting a configuration and want to save your edits, click Apply Changes.
Report Configuration
Name
Insert the name of your report here. This won’t appear on the actual report anywhere, but will be used to name the actual file we output.
Layout
Choose between a portrait or landscape format. This sets the initial page orientation, but any page breaks with orientation changes inserted into your dashboard (see p.141) will switch appropriately in the PDF.
Theme
We’ve provided a handful of different color themes for your reports, select any of these from the drop-down menu and the page thumbnail will update to preview the new scheme. To set your own brand colors, choose Custom. A list of various page elements will appear along with the hexadecimal color value each is currently set to. You can click on these and use the color picker to select a new hue, or if you know the exact hex value you require, you can type it in directly.
Include a cover page
Creates a page which includes the following Title, Date, and Prepared By settings:
Title
The actual title that will appear on your report. It only appears on the cover page, so if you don’t opt to include one you won’t see the title.
Date
Check the Date Of Generation box to automatically set the date to the day the report is output (useful for scheduled reports), or uncheck it to select a specific date manually.
Prepared by
Anything entered here appears as author details on the cover page.
Footer text
You can add footer text here to repeat along the bottom of each page. It will appear on the bottom left.
Show page numbers
Page numbers, if selected here, will appear in the bottom right, in line with the footer text.
Logos
You can insert up to two logos, one each to run at the bottom left and/or bottom right of your report. Hit Choose File, find the logo on your computer and then hit Upload. Maximum file size is 5MB.
Default font
Select a font from the range offered by the drop-down menu. If you’re not familiar with any of the
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fonts on offer, hit the Examples links for a pop-up preview of each. You can also select Custom to upload a font of your own (trueype .ttf only). Hit Choose File, browse to the font on your computer and then hit Upload to use the font in your report.
Scheduling report and email
This tab from the Report Configuration window lets you specify the frequency and recipients of your report. The report will be automatically generated and a notification emailed to the list of recipients at the specified time, after which they’ll be able to log on and download it. Scheduled reports appear on their own area in the Reports section, available from the left panel.
From
Set the sender of the report, this can be you or another team member.
To
Two drop-down lists here let you add recipients of your report. User selects members of your team, while Report Recipient lets you choose from any report-only users you may have set up (see box). As you select your recipients they appear in the box below, and can be removed by clicking the X adjacent to each name.
Subject / Message
These two fields let you add a subject line a message body which will appear in the notification email sent out to all recipients.
Frequency
Set the frequency that the report will be generated—daily, weekly (on the specified day of the week), or monthly (on the specified date of the month)—or select Paused to switch the automation off.
Setting up report recipients
Recipients of your reports must be platform users of one kind or another, whether or not they have full access. To create a user with ‘Report Only’ access, go to Account Settings under the Settings cog wheel (top right of the navigation bar).
Select User Management from the left panel, and check the Report Recipients Enabled box. The page will reload, after which you’ll notice a new item in the left panel—Report Recipients—from which you can then create a new, limited user. Enter their details and assign them a password (you’ll need to send these details to your recipient separately). The platform should then email the new recipient when new reports assigned to them become available to log in and view.

FURTHER READING
SEO Now 2015
http://content.linkdex.com/SEO+Now+2015.pdf
Rethink Your Content Marketing
http://content.linkdex.com/Rethink+Your+Content+Marketing+2014.pdf
(Old) SEO Now 2014
http://content.linkdex.com/SEO+Now+2014.pdf
SEO for Brands 2014
http://content.linkdex.com/SEO+For+Brands+2014.pdf
SEO for Agencies 2014
http://content.linkdex.com/SEO+for+Agencies+2014.pdf
Global Social Media Marketing
http://content.linkdex.com/Global+Social+Media+Marketing.pdf
Contact us:
www.linkdex.com
support@linkdex.com