Inofficial GSA Search Engine Ranker FAQ
I decided to write a little FAQ that answers some of the most asked questions. Please understand that I’m just a regular GSA user.
Before posting your question on the GSA Forum please make sure to search this FAQ with CTRL+F or even better: read through it. That will save everybodys time. Thanks in advance.
Do I need Private Proxies?
You don’t NEED them, but it makes things a lot faster and some people want to stay anonymous. Also, it is highly recommended to use proxies for everyone who has a VPS. Your account could get banned after your provider received too many complaints about the IP. However if you get complains is up to the way you use the tool. It's after all still a tool that can be used for good or bad. We are not responsible for what you do with it but strongly suggest you not to spam with it of course!
What are good proxy providers?
check here: https://docu.gsa-online.de/search_engine_ranker/introduction#proxy_services
Do I need a VPS?
No! But note, usually you want to run the software 24/7 with a fast internet connection.
What are good VPS providers?
see here: https://docu.gsa-online.de/search_engine_ranker/introduction#application_hosting
What about Captchas?
A lot of people are using a software like Captcha Breaker and an online service like DeathByCaptcha or ShaniBPO as backup. If you use Captcha Breaker and don't know what settings you should use please check our forum about that.
What should I consider when using email accounts?
Make sure the program can access the pop3 server for checking emails. Also check that you don't delete emails in your email client once it logs into the server. All emails should be in your inbox and none should be saved in “Spam/Junk”.
Here is the solution for Hotmail accounts:
Hotmail Inbox Everything
You should check from time to time, if you’re email has been blacklisted and if that’s the case exchange it with a new one.
Why does GSA ignore my PR filters?
Uncheck “Also analyse and post to competitors backlinks” and “Use URLs from global sites lists if enabled”.
Can the software handle input text in other languages than English?
The software can handle all UTF-8 characters (which includes nearly all known characters). Before submission the content is encoded to a format which works for the site. Sometimes you will still see display errors, but that is a problem of the site that can’t handle encoding correctly
How can I post to .gov, .edu, .de, .es etc. only?
Go to "Skip sites where the following words appear in the URL/domain" and
add an exclamation mark followed by the domain ending. So for posting only to .edu sites you’d add !.edu
Please note to enter all "white listed" domains in one line like "!.edu !.gov !.gsa" and not one in each line.
Where can I find a decent badwords list?
You can put a badwords list together yourself using sites like Wordpress Spam Words and Swearword Dictionary or you use lists posted by users, e.g. s4nt0s one or the one from GlobalGoogler.
What are the different colors for?
Green = submitting
Blue= verification
Orange = searching for new targets
Red = something is wrong (not used for now)
How can I display the diagram?
Right-click on a project, select Show URLs -> Submitted or Verified -> Stats -> Diagram.
Or with Right-click on a project -> Show Diagram/Chart
How can I turn off the popups?
There are 2 Options that are causing popups. Follow these steps:
Project Options -> If a form field can't be filled (like category) -> Choose Random
Options -> Captcha -> Uncheck “Finally ask user if everything else fails (else the submission is skipped)”
I don’t want that GSA places my link at the end of the articles, how can I change that?
Insert <a href="%url%">%anchor_text%</a> at the place you want to have your URL + Anchortext or disable the option to place the link at the bottom (below article input field).
Why doesn’t GSA post articles on wiki sites?
According to Sven wiki article links are gone way sooner than links in the about section. He said there might be an option for changing that later.
How to disable German and Polish engines?
Leave the respective fields blank and check “Uncheck Engines with empty fields”, or right-click on the field and choose “Disable Engines that use this”.
Is there a way to retrieve user account login details, e.g. account name + password of Web 2.0s?
Edit/Double Click Project -> Tools -> Export -> Account Data
What is the difference between "Delete URL Cache" and "Delete History Cache"?
Delete Cache - Click this only if you have e.g. imported a wrong target URL list or think you want to clear the URLs that a previous search task found.
Delete History - Click this if you..
a) want to submit to sites that you previously skipped (e.g. you didn't want to enter captchas back than but want to do now)
b) think it found sites in the past that it skipped but are now supported by e.g. new added engines
c) think it found sites in the past and somehow your internet connection blocked it to get sent to (proxy issue e.g.)
Can I use GSA for building links to my moneysite?
There are a lot of different opinions on that topic. If you set up the program correctly with strict filters, good content (best manual spun) and only for certain types of platforms, there shouldn’t be problems. Keep in mind that it always depends on the person who uses such a powerful tool like GSA.
Can I set the software to build backlinks in drip feed mode?
Project Options -> Pause the project after XX submissions or verifications for XX minutes/days.
So you could setup to post 10 links a day with:
Pause project after 10 verifications for 1440 minutes/1 day.
How long does it take to verify my submissions?
It can take up to 5 days until a submission is checked. Be patient.
Why are there more verified than submitted links?
If a submitted URL timed out (to many unsuccessful checks) it will be removed, so the number of submitted links can decrease and is sometimes lower than the number of verified links.
GSA suddenly finds a lot less new links to post to than the days before. Why is that?
Wait a few days to see if this is just a temporary problem. After that it most likely ran out of keywords. Try adding more keywords and choose some new search engines to scrape from.
Today I got XY submitted and YY verified... is this normal?
Ozz:
How should we know? When you are saying that you are 10 mph fast and asking if thats normal how should anyone know if you are driving a car, bicycle or a skateboard for
instance.
There are so many factors that play a role. It’s impossible to give an answer to that question with so little information.
We need to know the
Number of
- Projects
- URLs you are processing
- Search engines you selected
- Keywords you entered
Also, what
- types of sites you selected
- kind of filters you use (OBL, PR,…)
- is the Processor power of PC you are running on
- is the RAM of PC you are running on
- speed your internet connection has
And how long you already have been running the project.
I’m getting a lot of download failed errors. How can I fix it?
Check if GSA is blocked by a Firewall or Antivirus software. Another reason can be bad proxies, often public ones. Try without or choose other/private proxies to check if it works better then.
What placeholders are available for the fields?
%NAME% - will be replaced with the a random users name
%EMAIL% - will be replaced with the a random email (auto generated)
%WEBSITE% - will be replaced with the users website url
%BLOGURL% - will be replaced with the target url you are about to submit to
%BLOGTITLE% - will be replaced with the page title of the target site
%keyword% - uses random keyword from project settings
%spinfile-% - takes a random line in that file
%source_url% - referrer page
%targeturl% - same as %blogurl%
%targethost% - just the http://www.domain.com without a path
%random_email% - same as %email%
%random-[min]-[max]% - a random number between min and max
%spinfolder-% - takes content of a random file in that folder
%file-<[ile]% - takes content of that file
%url_domain% - just the domain name of your url
%url% - your url
%?????% anything from the project input boxes e.g. %anchor_text% or %website_title%
or %description_250% ...
special variables for blogs:
%meta_keyword% - takes a keyword from target meta tags
%blog_title% - same as %blogtitle%
special variables for image commenting:
%image_title% - the name of the image you comment on (sometimes it is sadly the filename only as some webmasters don't set a title)
%random_url% - inserts another URL from your project
%random_anchor_text% - inserts another random anchor text.
%random_sanchor_text% - inserts another random secondary anchor text
%url1%, %url2% ... - inserts the exact URL from your project.
How can I add new engines without updating the whole software?
Right-click on a running Project -> Modify Project -> Use New Engines
How can I backup my projects?
Select the Projects you want to backup -> Right-click -> Modify -> Backup
Can I run two instances of my copy at the same time?
No. Please support the developers and buy another version.
It is already very cheap, some would say too cheap, so don’t try to do some shady tricks.
Is GSA better than Scrapebox?
This question can’t be answered, because both tools are different in most parts.
Scrapebox is basically a Link Harvester + Blog Commenter and GSA Search Engine Ranker is an Automatic Backlinking tool with lots of different backlink sources.
A good idea is to combine the strengths of both tools.
How to combine Scrapebox and GSA?
You can use Scrapebox for harvesting URLs with GSA footprints. I extracted the footprints with the tool posted by s4nt0s.
Put in your keyword list into Scrapebox -> click on the “M” -> load the list with GSA footprints. Now you can harvest the URLs with Scrapebox.
After that you can use the Scrapebox filter functions, like “Remove duplicate URLs” and filter for PR.
Now you have your own list, that you can use with GSA. See next Q&A.
Addition:
You can scrape for a specific platform by:
Using the platform footprint in GSA SER:
Options > Advanced > Tools > Search Online for URLs > [Select Platform]
Add the footprints into Scrapbox, and scrape. Then just import those target URLs into GSA SER, and it will use these to post to.
How can I use GSA as posting tool for my own list?
Uncheck all search engines, uncheck “Also analyse and post to competitors backlinks”, uncheck “Use URLs from global sites lists if enabled”.
Right-click on the project and click "Import Target URLs".
I'm not getting the expected results. Can someone help me?
"If you want to get some good feedback and assistance in this forum you need to have a detailed post with your issues. First you need to search this forum and ensure your question is not answered.
Go to Google and type in: site:forum.gsa-online.de keyword
If that doesn't help: Take screenshots, list all your settings. Experienced users will take a quick look at your screenshots and give you some basic ideas where you're going wrong. Copy this sample post: https://forum.gsa-online.de/discussion/1440/identify-low-performance-factor#Item_5
How to post Full Article on WIKI?
edit the project->click Options->go to Filter URLs->Type of Backlinks to create->enable Article-Wiki. However this is not recommended and considered as spam. Don't use it except you know what you are doing.
Why do I see so many none related Anchor texts that I did not define/do not want?
a) You use generic anchors in project data -> uncheck it
b) You use domain anchors in project data -> uncheck it
c) Some engines simply use there own anchors like "Homepage of Author" -> right click on engines->uncheck engines not using your anchor texts
d) Some engines use Names instead of Anchor Texts or Generic Anchors like Blog Comments (see a or disable Blog Comments/Image Comments)
Why do my top anchor texts come up with the URL in front?
The Trackback Format2 engine is producing an anchor text like "Anchor Text - www.yoursite.com". Just disable this one if you do not want it.
More Info:
https://docu.gsa-online.de/search_engine_ranker/tutorials
Tagged:
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
You can edit what you want, but please send me a message after that so I can edit the BHW thread accordingly.
Why doesn’t GSA post articles on wiki sites?
According to Sven wiki article links are gone way sooner than links in the about section. He said there might be an option for changing that later.
I've two Q&As prewritten "Where can I find a decent badwords list?" and "How to disable German and Polish engines?" will add all Q&A in next ~2 days.
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=aMDfgrkj, would be useful for FAQ.
Wait a few days to see if this is just a temporary problem. After that it most likely ran out of keywords. Try adding more keywords and choose some new search engines to scrape from.
Guys,
This should be pinned to the top of the main discussion board. If I didn't see a reference to it, I would never have known it even existed.
This has the potential to be even better - if people could only see it and add to it !!!
Great job Erbsensuppe !!!!!!!!!
that is Svens decision, but thanks.
@all
Links are now proper embedded and I removed some spelling errors.
@Erbsensuppe. PS (sorry for all this is in german, it's just a compliment for his efforts): Besten Dank auch dir dass du dich so einsetzt. Es ist immer schön zu sehen wenn Leute nicht nur nehmen und versuchen etwas gutes primär zu ihrem eigenen Vorteil einzusetzen ohne selber etwas beizutragen. Wie ich mal auf BHW geschrieben habe - SER ist für mich nicht bloss ein SEO Tool sondern eine Community welche SPASS macht und es ist schön zu sehen wie ein paar gute Leute zusammengefunden haben.
That is s4nt0s decision, if he wants to have the tools here. I won't just take them from BHW without asking or something. I get what you mean but I'm not sure if this isn't too advanced for the basic FAQ.
What do the others say about that?
@Bytefaker (sorry, have to answer in German)
Danke für deinen Kommentar, das liest man gerne. Finde es auch super, was hier gerade für eine Community entsteht. Wir sollten das so beibehalten, dann wird im Endeffekt jeder davon profitieren. Meine einzige Sorge ist nur, dass es irgendwann zu einfach wird, die Software zu bedienen und die Noobs anfangen alles zu Tode zu spammen (siehe SB, Xru Phänomen).
@all
Prepared new Q&As for "Do I need to add my URL into any of the content sections (Articles, Web 2.0 etc.) or will it do it automatically? " and "Today I got XY submitted and YY verified... is this normal?".
About GlobalGoogler's statement: What he meant was that the faq should contain also that it makes sense when CS is used to set a retry count for CS of 2 and a retry count for DBC (for example of one). This makes sense because the retry limit of some plattforms seems to be 3
That's just my opinion, if everybody thinks it belongs to the FAQ I'll add it of course.
Today I got XY submitted and YY verified... is this normal?
Ozz: There are so many factors that play a role. It’s impossible to give an answer to that question with so little information.
We need to know the
Number of
- Projects
- URLs you are processing
- Search engines you selected
- Keywords you entered
Also, what- types of sites you selected
- kind of filters you use (OBL, PR,…)
- is the Processor power of PC you are running on
- is the RAM of PC you are running on
- speed your internet connection has
And how long you already have been running the project.GREEN = submitting
BLUE = verification
Orange = Searching new targets
RED = something is wrong (not used for now)