OptiLink FAQ
- "Could not find the main class" error
- Downloading & Installing
- Common New User Issues, Bugs, & Errors
- Understanding OptiLink Results
- Advanced Questions
- Optional Features
When I run Optilink I got a pop-up that said, "Could not find the main class. Program will exit."
The problem is caused by having more than one Java installed on your system. The fix is to UNinstall every Java instance on your system. Then reinstall the latest version of Java at Java.com and then reinstall Optilinks.
Downloading, Installing, and configuring OptiLink on your platform is simple, but the size of the download can be a problem unless you are using a broadband connection. There are three steps to getting OptiLink installed and operating:
- Download and Install the Java runtime from Sun.
- Execute the OptiLink Installer for your platform.
- Configure OptiLink.
I get Error 1316 when trying to install the Java Runtime from Sun.
The automatic install is the easiest to use, but does sometimes have problems. The manual installer will always work, but is a bit more involved. Here's the step by step procedure. The links below will open new windows so you can come back here as you complete each step.
- Goto http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html and scroll to the section labeled "J2SE v 1.4.2_06 JRE includes the JVM technology" or something similar.
- Select the first "download" link for the Windows installation of the JRE and follow the instructions.
- Once the install of the JRE is complete, you should then be able to use the OptiLink installer in Step 2 of the instructions at http://www.optilinksoftware.com/download.html
How do I find out what version of Java I have installed?
On Mac OS-X, Linux, and Windows, open a command-line window and execute java -version See your system documentation for how to get a command line window open. The Optilink program require at least version 1.4.1 to operate.
The Sun Java Runtime install says it won't install without a new service pack.
Sun Microsystem's installer for the Java Runtime checks to be sure that your operating system is compatible with
the Java Runtime before it will begin the install. One of the most important checks it does is to make sure that you have the Microsoft Service Packs installed that are critical to reliable operation of Java. If the Sun installer tells you to first install a service pack, you should download the required service pack from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/default.mspx before you continue with the installation of the Java runtime.
OptiLink appears to install okay, but when it runs, all I get is an update screen and then it disappears and OptiLink doesn't run.
This is always a problem with the Java installation, but there are a number of variations of the problem. Please email support at michael (at) michaelwong.com if you are having this problem and provide the reported Java runtime version (see procedure in this FAQ).
I get the error: usage jre-cp ...
This is what happens when you execute the optilink.exe file in the install directory. This will not work. You must run Optilink from the shortcut provided on the start menu in the OptiTools folder.
I downloaded and installed OptiLink but none of the search engines is enabled.
You probably need to enter your personal authorization key into the File/Setup dialog. This key was emailed to you for your own personal use when you purchased OptiLink. To enter this key into OptiLink, start the program and chose the File menu, and the Setup option on the File menu. A dialog will open and the key should be entered into the last field of that form and the Accept button pressed. OptiLink will then validate the authorization key using the web and enable the program.
Every page I check has zero links. This isn't working at all!
Make sure you have selected a number of links to fetch from the search engines. In the command view, there is a count of links to fetch for each of the engines you have enabled in your copy of OptiLink. If all of these are zero, OptiLink will not fetch any links from the search engines. This can be useful if all you want to do is analyze links from the list of pages in the "Additional pages to include" list, but if there are no additional pages and no search engine counts, OptiLink has nothing to work with.
I entered my personal authorization key in the Setup dialog but I still have only 10 links at Hotbot enabled (demo mode).
First, check that you really did enter the key correctly. If your key has leading zeros, they must be included as well. If the key is correct, then the problem is almost always an internet connection problem. Since OptiLink is working in demo mode, we can use that to test OptiLink's ability to connect to the internet. Enter cnn.com on the OptiLink Command View as the Taget URL to Analyze and press start. This should find at least 10 links at hotbot and proceed with an analysis. Check the OptiLink Log View to be sure it is connecting to the internet and able to access web pages. If you instead see a rapidly aborted run with an error message in the log view, then you must debug the internet connection for OptiLink. The most likely causes are proxy servers and firewalls. If OptiLink operates correctly in demo mode but still does not authorize when using your key, please contact support via email at michael (at) michaelwong.com and be sure to include your key.
Does OptiLink work with Firewall programs and Proxy servers?
Firewall programs will need to be configured according to the vendor's instructions to allow OptiLink unrestricted access to the internet. OptiLink need not be modified or configured in any way for your firewall. For use with Proxy servers, OptiLink supports the most common authentication scheme, called "Basic Authentication". OptiLink does not currently support Digest and NTLM authentication. To configure OptiLink for use with a proxy server, simply start OptiLink and enter the proxy configuration data into the File/Setup dialog and check the proper proxy options near the top of the dialog. Your system or network administrator should be the best source of information concerning these proxy settings. As soon as you have your firewall configured and the correct proxy settings entered, OptiLink will be able to communicate with the web. Your first sign of success will be when your authorization key is validated and the 4 standard search engine interfaces are enabled.
When I run Optilink I get no results. What's wrong?
First, take a look at the quickstart video. Make sure you are selecting a link count for at least one of the search engines, or are providing an explicit list of linking pages to check in the "additional pages" listbox. Next, take a look at the Log View in OptiLink and see if there are any obvious error messages. Finally, if you still can't figure it out, do a File/Save in OptiLink and send the file to michael (at) michaelwong.com for diagnosis.
Why does OptiLink treat all links the same? Shouldn't links from other sites be given more weight in OptiLink's analysis?
Only when the search engines start doing it, and so far, they haven't. The analysis techniques and views provided in OptiLink were derived through actual trial and error and many dozens of ranking analyses. The emphasis in the development of OptiLink has always been on experimental evidence, not theory, and this tradition continues. As soon as we start seeing evidence that Google and the other major indexes weight internal linking with less relevance than external linking, we will upgrade OptiLink to match the engines. Until then, make your internal links as good as you can make them, 'cause they are worth their weight in gold.
In the Log View I am seeing the message "Error Loading Page". What is this about?
OptiLink will sometimes fail to load pages. There are several casues for this. First, the page may be offline (site down) when OptiLink came to call. This will cause the OptiLink browser to time out and produce this error message. There are also some pages, that even when they respond, produce HTML that so full of syntax errors that the parser inside OptiLink can not do the analysis it needs to. This will also produce the same message in the Log. Finally, there is a resource control problem in Windows that can cause a dozen or more of these errors in a row. What happens is the the HTTP connections don't get cleaned up fast enough and OptiLink simply runs out of resources. The only known workaround is to (of course) restart Windows. If this kind of thing persists, please contact support at michael (at) michaelwong.com.
What is "Linking Title Density" (in the compare view), how is this measured, and what do I do with it?
OptiLink gets a list of pages that point at your target page, either from the search engines or from a list of URLs you provide. OptiLink then loads each of these pages and finds all links to your page and collects the text in each of those links. it also records the title text of each of these linking pages. So for any given link to your target URL, we have the text used in the link and the title text of the page where the link was found. The link text is used directly at Google and other search engines as part of their ranking criteria and that is what is measured in the "Link Text" column of the Compare view. The titles of linking pages however are not used in ranking. The purpose in providing that information in OptiLink is so you can see what sorts of pages are linking to the target page. This is useful in selecting linking partners and it can be a guide to how well targeted the traffic to your URL is likely to be. See the application secrets guide for some comments on traffic development and assessing traffic quality.
I know there are links to my page, but OptiLink isn't finding them.
OptiLink will look for links in the search engines you select, and in the list of additional pages you provide. There is no other way available for OptiLink to find links. You can check for yourself what links are available in the selected search engines by using the same query that OptiLink does, typically "link:" followed by the full URL of page. After running OptiLink you will find the search engine results page on the internal browser window in OptiLink. There are many reasons why links are not found by the search engine (and thereby OptiLink). One very common problem is the "PR4" filter at Google, where the list of linking pages includes only pages with a PageRank (PR) of at least 4. Lesser PR pages are counted in Google's ranking algorithm, but the pages are simply filtered out of the search results.
OptiLink only shows single word statistics. How do I optimize for a multiword phrase?
Yes, it is true that multi-word phrases are what you will normally optimize for, but the only real way to do that is to optimize the individual words separately. Here's why. If our search is A B C, the search engine will prefer the precise sequence A B C, but it will also provide results positioned for the proper subsequences A, B, C, A B, and B C. It will also return results for A C and even A X C, where X is a word not requested in the query. Each of these search variations are weighted in some unknown way by the search engine so that results can be ordered. We all get a intuitive grasp of what to expect by looking at large numbers of results, but reducing this intuition to a number is not currently solved. What OptiLink provides is the raw percentages for each word, plus the list of actual link text use, to feed into your own intuition. I've found that this is almost always sufficient. The alternative is to incorporate a fixed or variable weighting function that produces a single number, but that single number would always be misleading since we can not possibly know what the real weighting algorithm is in use at the search engines.
Does Google recognize the queries from OptiLink as "automated" or just like normal browsing?
OptiLink looks like a normal browser to all web servers, Google's included. In fact, OptiLink is a browser, just not a "normal" one. OptiLink provides fairly standard web access behaviour backed by extensive data analysis on your own desktop computer: OptiLink is a specialized browser for webmasters.
Dealing with "out of memory" errors.
The Java runtime environment is configured to used upto a fixed amount of virtual memory so that a non-terminating operation can not cause more widespread problems in your computer. The default setting used in all OptiTools programs is 128 Megabytes which is more than sufficient for nearly all purposes. However, if you need more, it can be had by carefully editing a configuration file in the OptiTools installatiion directories. This procedure must be performed without the OptiTools program running.
- Find the JExpress folder in the OptiTools install directory. There you will find a .properties file for each of the OptiTools programs.
- Use a plain text editor to open the .properties file for the program you would like to provide more memory for. Be sure that you can save with the same name, and in plain text. Styled text as is common in word processing applications will not work.
- The memory allocation in Megabyes is embedded in the string -Xmx128M. To set the maximum allowed memory to 512 Mb, change this text to -Xmx512M.
- Save the file (remember, plain text only), and restart the OptiTools program with this greater memory allocation.
I purchased OptiLink, why do I only have 4 search engines enabled?
First and foremost, OptiLink is a tool designed to explain top ranking so that you can do better. Because OptiLink uses the linking structure of the web, we really only need access to the 4 indexes of the web that are used by all the major search portals. The search engines enabled in the standard version of OptiLink provide the easiest and most realiable interfaces to these 4 indexes. OptiLink is constantly updated to keep abreast of changes in the search engines and the aliances between them so that you have access to link index that is available. The additional search engine interfaces not enabled in the standard version are for purposes other than rank analysis and linking optimization.
Why are the "Fetch Alexa Rank" and "Fetch Google PR" options greyed out?
These are additional features not used in doing ranking analysis. They are available for extra cost to extend optilink beyond its original, and still primary, mission of explaining top ranking so you can achieve top ranking for your own pages. As OptiLink continues to be upgraded and enhanced, the core functionality will remain rank analysis and improvement, but additional features related to the more general task of traffic development and enhancement will also be made available as extra-cost options. You'll find full details of the SEPack and GooglePack in the email receipt when you purchase OptiLink. The majority of webmasters do not need either one of these packages.
Do I need the expansion packs?
Probably not. The standard feature set is sufficient to analyze top ranking in all but the most outlandish categories. Until you have exhausted the features and functions of the standard product, I recommend that you not add the option packs. The one exception to this advice might be the more advanced professional SEOs.
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