Must Have
- Unix or Linux based server
- PHP 4.3.0+
- MySQL 4.0.4+
Optional
(but highly recommended)
- PHP open_basedir no restrictions
- PHP GD extension
- PHP safe_mode disabled
- PHP shell_exec() function available
- PHP CLI version installed
- PHP cURL extension
- Apache mod_rewrite module
Browser Requirements
- Firefox 2+
- Internet Explorer 7+
Other Recommendations
- A dedicated server is recommended if you plan on having a large number of links (50,000+) or categories (2,000+) in your database
LinkX Product Overview
LinkX is a powerful product that allows you to completely manage and run a link directory. Setting up a link directory on your
site can be a great way to optimize your search engine rankings. Creating a directory with large amount of related data and
having external sites put links to your site can quickly boost your search engine position, and will also help to bring in
traffic from the sites that are listed in your link directory. You can optionally require that the sites in your database
maintain a link to your site, and have LinkX check your link database to make sure that all of the links to your site are
still in place. Read on to find out more about the awesome features included in this software package.
Be sure to have a look at the huge feature list to get an idea of what this software is capable of doing. All of these features
are included in the standard LinkX package, there are no addons or additional purchases required.
Fully Template Driven Output
End User Search Engine
The end-user search engine included with LinkX allows your users to perform powerful boolean type searches of your links. The searches will
include the site title, description, and keywords that were submitted with the link.
Your users will be able to use + signs to require that
a word appear in the search results, - signs to prevent words from appearing in the search results, quotes to search for exact phrases, and
much more. This will allow your users to quickly locate the information they are looking for, and will give them a positive experience with
your site, increasing the chance they will bookmark and return later.
Complete Source Code Provided
When you purchase a license for TGPX you will have complete access to all of the software source code. There is no need to have Zend Optimizer, ionCube Loader, or other
PHP extensions installed on your server. This also gives you the option to customize the raw PHP code in case you want to tweak the existing features or add your own.
Modern Control Panel
The LinkX control panel is where you will manage all of the software settings and data. Being our newest product, the LinkX control panel
takes advantage of the power of modern web browsers and utilizes DOM and AJAX technologies to provide you with an efficient interface to manage
the software. From the control panel you can manage all of the software settings, edit your categories, process newly submitted links, edit
the software templates, send e-mail messages, and much more.
The control panel also supports two different types of accounts: administrators and editors. Administrator level accounts will have access to
all of the software functions. Editor level accounts will only be allowed to access the functions you specify. So, for example, you could create
an editor account that is only allowed to approve and edit links. This gives you the option to have many people working on your link directory
at once, with the safety of restricting them only to the functions you want them to use.
User Defined Database Fields
The software's user defined database fields feature allows you to store any additional information about links and accounts that you
like. There is no limit to the number of user defined database fields that you can have, so you can store any amount of extra data that you like.
You will also be able to configure validators for your user defined fields so they can be checked to meet a specific format when they are submitted
by end users.
For accounts you can configure user defined fields that the submitter must provide when they create their account, and they will also be able to edit
that data when they modify their account in the future. For link submissions you can add extra fields to the link submission form if there is an
extra bit of data you want to collect. Any of the additional fields that you configure can be displayed in your link directory pages next to the associated
link!
Unlimited Categories & Sub-categories
Separating the links by their category is very important so your users can quickly find the type of content they are looking for. With LinkX you
can have an unlimited number of categories each with an unlimited number of sub-categories. Your sub-categories can also be nested as deeply as you
wish so you can create very specific sub-categories for your users to view and link submitters to select from. Every category that you define can
also have a custom value for the meta description and keywords tags to improve their relevency in search engine results.
In addition to having unlimited categories, you can also place each link in an unlimited number of categories. If there is a link in your database
that fits into more than one of your categories, it is not necessary to add that link to your database multiple times. You can simply configure that
single link to appear all of the categories it fits in, and LinkX will take care of displaying it in all of those categories for you.
Search Engine Friendly URLs
To help boost your search engine results, it is important that the URLs of your link directory be in a format that the popular search engines
will index. Most search engines will not index URLs that have a query string (the end of a URL after a ? character), which are commonly used
in PHP scripts. LinkX takes advantage of the mod_rewrite Apache server module to produce URLs that do not contain any query strings and can be
easily indexed by all of the popular search engines.
When a user is browsing your link directory, the URLs they see in their browser will correspond with the names of the categories you have
created. This type of URL will be much more pleasing to your users and will also help to increase your search engine rankings since the
category names will appear directly in the URL.
Link Management
Once you've got your link directory up and running, your main task will be to manage the links in your database. Users will be able to submit
new links to your directory and edit their existing links that they had previously submitted. You can optionally require that all links be
approved by an editor before being displayed, and also optionally require all edited links to be approved before the changes appear. This
allows you to make sure there are no inappropriate sites added to your link directory.
The LinkX control panel allows you to quickly view and edit any link in the database at any time. If you need to modify the link URL, description,
or any of the other link data it takes only a few clicks in the control panel to do that. The control panel also has "quick" functions which allow
you to change many links at once. You can use a search and replace function to change a value in your link database on hundreds or thousands of
links at a time.
You will also want to make sure the links in your database are following your rules, and LinkX offers plenty of features for that purpose. The
control panel has an interface where you can specify blacklisted items which are not allowed to appear in the link data. The blacklist can check
the site URL, HTML code on the linked page, words in the link title and description, and more. You will also have the ability to setup reciprocal
link code which must (optionally) appear on the linked site.
Once of the most important link management features is the ability to re-check the links in your database after they have been submitted. All of
the links are checked during submission to make sure they meet your rules, but it is possible that some users may change their pages after submission.
This is where the LinkX scanner comes in. The link scanner can go through your database of links and check each one to make sure it is still in
compliance with the rules you have set.
LinkX Feature List
Categories and Sub-categories
- Define unlimited categories
- Define unlimited sub-categories
- Add multiple categories at once
- Sub-categories can be nested to any depth
- Configure custom meta description and keywords values for each category
- Edit categories at any time
- Configure categories that are related to each other
- Setup crosslink categories that simply point to another category
- Use custom templates for any/all of your categories
- Set link submission status for each category
- Automatically accept all link submissions
- Require approval of all link submissions
- Close category; no more submissions allowed
- Make categories hidden so they do not appear in the directory
- Each link can appear in as many categories as you like
Advanced template system
- Based on Smarty syntax; if you've used Smarty you can easily use this template system
- Approximately 5x performance advantage over Smarty
- Powerful caching system to reduce the number of database hits and server load
- Extremely flexible syntax allows for nearly any design imaginable
- Template system allows for translating templates into other languages (English and Western European currently supported)
- Templates can be edited in the LinkX control panel or in a desktop application of your choice
Control Panel Accounts
- Can have unlimited number
- Two types of accounts: administrators and editors
- Administrators have access to all software functions
- Each editor account has it's own privileges
- Can send e-mail when creating account
- All accounts have their passwords encrypted for security
dsbl.org Banned IP Checking
- Third party site that maintains a list of known compromised hosts
- Helps protect against spam link, comment, and account submissions
- Check during link submission
- Check during account creation
- Check during link comment submission
- Check during link rating submission
- Check during bad link reporting
Link Directory
- Browse links by category
- Powerful boolean mode search engine
- Automatic pagination of links and search results
- Page to display the most recently added links
- Page to display the most popular links (most clicked)
- Page to display the top rated links
- Each link will have a details page where users can view complete information about the link and it's comments
News items
- Configure multiple news items through the control panel
- News items can appear on your main directory page so you can update your surfers with the latest information
- You configure how many news items will appear on your directory page
- News items can be edited or deleted at any time
Search engine friendly URLs (Apache mod_rewrite required)
- Used for the link directory pages
- URLs are based on the category names you have configured
- Directory appears to be nested, just as your categories are configured
- Search engines will be able to index your complete link directory
- Control panel function to automatically generate the correct .htaccess file for you to use
Full software manual
- Complete installation instructions
- Documentation of all the major software functions
- Integrated with the control panel with context sensitive help
Link importing
- Import many links at once through the control panel
- Import from a file or by pasting data into a web-based text box
- Import data does not have to be in a specific format
- Import form will remember your previous settings so you can quickly import data that is in the same format
Link Submission
- Limit link description length
- Limit link title length
- Limit number of keywords
- Option to allow/disallow URL redirection
- Option to require a reciprocal link
- Option to only allow registered users to submit links
- Option to send confirmation e-mail to newly submitted links
- Option to require new links be confirmed through e-mail
- Links are checked against the blacklist you have configured
- Links will be checked for the reciprocal link code you have configured
Link Editing
- Both registered and un-registered users can edit their links
- Un-registered users must supply their e-mail address, link URL, and password to edit
- Registered users will be able to see all of the links they have submitted and choose which one to edit
- Option to require that link edits be approved before going live
Administrator defined link fields
- Add as many custom fields as you like
- Collect additional information about each link
- Configure validation for each field so that it must meet a specific requirement during submission
- Configure validation error messages for each field if it does not meet the requirement
- Optionally display the fields on the link details page
- Option to allow/disallow user to edit each field after submission
- Option to make each field required for submission
Link management
- Manage all of the links in your database through the software control panel
- Three types of links
- Regular - displayed normally in the directory
- Premium - displayed mixed with regular links, but can be highlighted for increased visibility
- Featured - displayed at the top of the page for maximum visibility
- Set expiration date for premium and featured links; they will automatically move back to regular status
- Disable a link at any time so it no longer appears in the link directory
- Edit a link at any time
- Modify any/all of the link information
- Move the link to a different category
- Delete the link from the database
- Scan single links through the control panel interface
- See if the link URLs are working
- See if the link has any blacklisted data
- See if the link has a reciprocal link back to your site
- Configure weights for links so that some will appear before others
- Send e-mail message to link submitter at any time
- Quick tasks interface for easy bulk editing
- Perform search and replace (search for and replace a value in a field)
- Perform search and set (search in one field, set another field to a specific value)
- Perform search and delete (search for a value in a field, and delete the link if it is found)
- Can apply to all links in a category or all links in the database
- Powerful search interface allows you to search any of the database fields
- You can choose how the links are sorted when displayed in the control panel
- Ability to configure customized rejection e-mails
- Each link you process can have a different rejection e-mail sent to them detailing why their link was rejected
Link Scanner (PHP CLI, no safe_mode, and shell_exec() required)
- Can be started at any time
- Scan some or all of your links
- Scan only a specific category
- Scan only specific link type (regular, premium, and/or featured)
- Scan only links with a specific status (unconfirmed, pending, active, and/or disabled)
- Scan links added within a specific date range
- Scan links modified within a specific date range
- Scan links that were last scanned within a specific date range
- Checks
- Connection errors
- Broken URLs (404, 500, etc HTTP status codes)
- Forwarding links
- Reciprocal link
- Blacklisted data
- Can have multiple configurations and select which one you want to run
- Live updates in the control panel of the link scanner status
- Generates a searchable report detailing what it did
Link Comments
- Limit the comment length
- Set a time limit to prevent multiple comments from being quickly submitted
- Option to only allow registered users to submit comments
- Option to require that new comments be approved before display
- Comment data is checked against the blacklist during submission
Link Ratings
- Set the maximum rating a site can receive
- Option to only allow registered users to rate sites
- Option to display each link's rating as stars
User Accounts
- Users can signup for an account at any time
- Option to send a confirmation e-mail to newly created accounts
- Option to require that newly created accounts be confirmed through e-mail
- All accounts have their passwords encrypted for security
- Users can login to edit their account information
- Users can see all of the links they have submitted and edit them
Bad Link Reporting
- Users of your site can report links that are no longer working or breaking your rules
- Form is provided so the user can specify what is wrong with the link
- Administrators can review the reports to determine what to do with each one
- Ability to delete or blacklist links directly from the report processing interface
Verification Codes (GD required)
- A string of characters will be displayed on an image
- User must enter the characters in a form field to verify they are a real surfer
- Link submission
- Account signup
- Link rating
- Link comment submission
- Can use custom fonts if GD was compiled with Freetype support
- Set the minimum and maximum length of the verification code
- Can use a predefined set of words instead of random characters
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