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Q. Should I submit my program to 3 or 4 major
shareware sites and not worry about the rest?
A. It is true that a
handful of big shareware sites will bring in the largest number of
downloads. However, it is a fallacious argument to suggest that
you need only worry about these sites for a simple reason - our
statistics show that the combined weight of all the other sites is VERY
significant. Can you afford to miss this market? In
addition, shareware sites will often run a software promotion or
'spotlight' a handful of products on their home page. This leads
to huge download peaks that would otherwise be missed. Do you
know, what are the 'big' shareware sites and which generate the most
traffic? Take a look at our Priority
1 site list to find out.
There is another important reason to submit to many
sites: Search engines will have more
links to your web site and your 'link count' will go up. The search
engines rank your web page on three criteria - 1. How closely the user's
search matches you page content, 2. How many other people have visited
your site via the search engine and 3. How many other web sites link to
your web site. The more web sites you can list your software with, the
better your score on criteria 3 and in time criteria 2.
This is a superficial explanation of a very complex topic. More
information can be found at
Search Engine Watch.
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Q.
Do the links I get from the shareware sites
help my Google rank?
The short answer is yes.
Increasing search engine ranking is a
complicated topic and depends on a variety
of factors but the links which are obtained
from the shareware sites are treated as more
important by Google than the links from
minor search engines. We actually have
clients who produce new software and get us
to submit for them JUST to increase their
Google ranking.
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Q. What sites do you submit to?
A. Take a look at
Shareware Tracker's
site
list.
This is all of the sites in our database. We thoroughly check
which sites your program is appropriate for before submitting. We
have also prioritized this list according to factors such as Google
rank, Alexa rank and traffic derived from the site. We always
submit your program to the most important sites first (i.e. we will
submit to all of the priority 1 sites
first, followed by priority 2 sites etc.)
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Q. Will my program be submitted to
the most important sites first?
A.
Yes! We submit your program only to
the most important sites first. If you
choose the
Deluxe package, we will submit it to
every site that your program is appropriate
for. However, if you choose the
Standard-100,
Standard-200
or Budget-50
package, we will submit to the most
important sites
first. This sets us apart from other
submission services which will probably only
submit your program to the 'easy' sites
(i.e. the low priority sites which don't
require you to register or login).
If you are thinking of using another
service, demand to know what sites they will be
submitting your program to BEFORE you
purchase a package.
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Q.
Can you give me a list of sites you will
submit to before I purchase a package?
A.
Sure can. We can provide you with a
site list on request. The sites your
program will be submitted to will be
dependent on which package you choose and
what type of program you have. We
carefully choose each site based on your
program type. We don't believe in
wasting anybody's time by spamming sites
with inappropriate programs.
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Q. Will my program get listed in the correct
category?
A. Yes! We manually check each submission and choose the
correct category for your software. Each site has a different
category list to choose from (this is one field that no
automated submission tool can fill for you).
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Q. Should I use a commercially available
software submission tool?
A. Yes if you have the time to do it yourself. Doing the
submission without one is very, very painful (we know from experience!)
The only one to use (and the one we use) is
Shareware Tracker. Even
though it is a great submission tool, it still does not do all of the
work and you still have to buy it (it costs $89US which includes 1 year
of support and updates). Once you buy it, you still have the following
work ahead of you.
-
Write your descriptions.
-
Create a PAD file.
-
Check all your information for accuracy.
-
Figure out which sites your program is eligible to be submitted
to (some sites only take specific types of programs).
-
Complete registration forms and wait for login information at
all the sites that require you to login.
-
Check every submit page for accuracy before submitting (there
are some fields that Shareware Tracker cannot automatically fill,
including the category where your software is to be listed in) .
Have a go at the trial version of
Shareware Tracker. You will be able
to submit to 27 sites for up to 45 days. Keep track of how long it takes at each
site then multiply this by 150. This is the minimum amount of time it is
going to take you. I think you will find our service a much better
option.
You also have the option of purchasing Shareware Tracker after we
have done all the hard work of submitting to keep track of your listings
yourself. We can send you the Shareware Tracker database for your
program.
Contact us if you are
interested in doing this.
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Q. Why don’t I just do it myself?
A. If you have the time and don’t want to spend any money,
then maybe you should do it yourself. Our service is not for everybody.
Be sure to read the
Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers.
When reading this section please keep in mind what you would consider to
be your own 'hourly rate' and multiply this by the amount of time it
takes to submit to even a handful of sites. You may wish to reconsider
your decision...
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Q. Should I keep a record of where I have
submitted?
A. This is VERY important. About 1/3 of the shareware sites
require a username and password, so you need to keep a record of all of
these. It is very easy to lose place of where you are at with submitting
and you don’t want to be doubling your workload and submitting to sites
more than once (not to mention the fact that this REALLY annoys the
program reviewers).
Our process logs all of the sites that we submit your software to. At
the end we provide you with this report which gives you the full details.
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Q. If the process is so long and complex, how
come you can do it so cheap?
A. Simple - our technology and economies of scale: We use
Shareware Tracker which provides a semi-automated way of submitting the
information to the shareware sites. Despite its smarts, it does not
replace the human, it only helps us. Every page is carefully checked
before submission. And since we do this all the time we become VERY,
VERY good at it.
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Q. Should I pay to submit my programs?
A. Some sites have
started to charge authors to list their programs. We would advise caution
when deciding which, if any, of these sites to spend your money with, as
there are still oodles of free shareware sites. For some comments
about sites that charge to get listed, see this discussion thread at
Accusolve.
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Q.
I saw another service claim to be
able to submit to 600+ sites. Why do you only submit to about 300 sites?
A. We use Shareware
Tracker's
site list for our submissions. This
program is supported by a very good
Discussion forum where information about new sites is added
regularly by authors. While there are no claims that they list
every possible worthwhile site, the list has been growing for a number
of years now and is very comprehensive. Some services claim to
submit to 600+ sites. This number is unrealistic and they are probably inflating their numbers with a bunch
of sites that don't accept submissions, or obsolete sites, or free-for-all sites that nobody would waste their time with. Also, they are
probably submitting your program to sites that it is not appropriate for
(e.g. submitting your business software to games only sites) which is
effectively spamming these sites and annoying the reviewers. We
take great care to ensure that your program is submitted to only the
most appropriate sites. Trying to submit to every possible site in
existence ends up being a waste of everybody's time.
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Q. Will the information I give
you be kept private?
A. Yes it will. Please read our
Privacy Policy.
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Q. Will submitting my site to thousands
of major search engines help my website
rankings and therefore my software sales?
A. The short answer is no.
Submitting your site to thousands of search
engines is not only a waste of time but
actually counter productive. Our
advice is to be wary of services which claim
to do this. Take a look at
this article at Successful Sites for
more information. Also, the links
which you obtain from submitting to
shareware sites are treated as more
important by the major search engines such
as Google than the links you get from
submitting to search engines.
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Q. Are download statistics important?
A. Yes and no. The
download statistics may give you an
indication of the relative popularity of
your program at a particular site.
However, many sites do not provide download
count statistics, so you cannot compare
these ones. Also, many visitors will
see your program listed on a Shareware site,
then visit your homepage before downloading
your program from there. This means
the download statistics on any given site
are usually less than the actual number of
downloads that you have received from having
your program listed there.
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Q. Does your service include submitting
an update?
A. If you release a new
version of your software we can submit the
updated version for you. The price is
90% of the original submission package you
purchased (i.e. if you purchased a Budget-50
package for $150, the price to submit an
updated version is $135).
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Q. What about
Captcha anti-spam codes?
A. An increasing number of
sites are implementing captcha anti-spam
codes to prevent automated submissions.
That does not worry us because we check each
submission page prior to submitting and
enter the code required. This is also
another reason why automated submission
tools cannot possibly work!
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