Review: Duncan Carver's Link Management Assistant
Duncan Carver's Link Management Assistant (LMA) seems to be a nice package, with more features than most Link Exchange Management software, but we couldn't get it to work in conjunction with a Drupal powered site. Drupal captures the sub-URL that LMA tries to use and returns a Page Not Found message. Unfortunately you will only find this out after doing a full install, the administration setup, and then trying to add to or view the directory listings.
The install instructions could definitely be reworked and if your server is PHPSuExec enabled, you'll have to replace any reference to permission 777 with 755. Truthfully the install instructions were a pain, as almost all the steps could have been eliminated by having already set the proper permissions in the tarball and giving a simple “unpack the tarball in xyz directory and then rename the lma directory to whatever you desire” so you weren't manually uploading specific files and directories. There could have been at least an attempt at explaining how to setup a MySQL database with CPanel, as that combination does seem to be the norm. It was also humorous that the NOTE: informing you that you need a MySQL database was at the end of the install instructions.
The only unresolved error we received was, “Column count doesn't match value count at row 1” while trying to add a manual link record. This may have been an issue with Drupal interference, but we deleted the product before resolving it, as we're a Drupal shop and had no need to do further testing once its incompatibilities with Drupal were identified.
The emails from Mr Carver are somewhat self-promotional spammy, but he is an SEO type, so it's basically to be expected.
All in all, we'd recommend it for Drupal usage if there was some way to embed an <? include "directory/resources.php"; ?> into an existing Drupal site page, thereby capturing the themed look and feel of your site.
Software Product Reviewed:
Duncan Carver's Link Management Assistant
Version 1.22, Stable
October 6, 2007
http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management/
LMA gone?
We're still getting emails from Duncan
Sam, Letter from Duncan...
From: "Duncan Carver"
To: Sam
Duncan Carver's - "Online Marketing Today"
Tuesday, 11th May 2010 - http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com
Follow Me On Twitter Here...
http://twitter.com/DuncanCarver/
So try sending an email to him on the address "admin" at his domain?
We've been using LinkMachine (linkmachine.net) for our clients, but after the Google kill off of PR for Reciprocal Link Exchanges/Directories, there isn't much point...
Regards,
Sam
LMA offline
Thanks for this helpful article. However, the directory is no longer being supported...meaning, the discussion forum has been taken off-line. It is not even archived. And no email response from Duncan...even though I am still getting his newsletters about worm-farming or whatever-you-call it!
So those of us who have Duncan Carver's link directory have been left out in a lurch. I have 4 non-functioning directories and many dissatisfied link partners. I'm guessing because an essential off-site file has been removed from the parent website.
In a Dis-appointed Mood
Thanks for the comment. I installed and had the lma in use for many years but am now very emotional about the fact that my lma directory suddenly dis-appeared and became non-functional.
Extremely dis-appointed, I wonder, does this mean that thousands of other lma users across the globe have had their lma directories in-explicably disabled by Duncan Carver?