Software Review of:
Web Site Traffic Builder 
by Intelliguis 

While carrying the Web Site Traffic Builder box during the meeting two people offered their unsolicited comments: 

• The product was difficult to set up but once he got it going he was satisfied.
• "That software crashed my system, disabled everything. Something about it removed an essential .DLL. Said he never did get satisfactory resolution from Intelliguis.

I started reading the documentation and was surprised at a few things I read. The last page of the manual states: "If you are using a cable modem or a proxy server you may experience difficulty in running Web Site Traffic Builder." Now why would that be? There was no explanation. I don’t have a cable modem yet, but will I have "difficulty" when I do? And most blatantly an ill constructed sentence, on the back of the box no less, "Web Site Traffic Builder automatically registers your web site with of over 600 of the Internet’s most prominent search engines, Internet directories and Web registries." How could such an egregious error be so predominantly displayed? It signals to me the level of quality control that I might find in the code itself. At this point I decided I would not risk installing the program on my main computer. 

Registering was a pain (and it said if I didn’t register, I would only be able to register with 9 major search engines) It asked for CD release. I entered 2.57 the version on the CD. They really wanted the CD-ID printed inside the manual. It asked for my name and said it would register that along with my "IP number". Strange! Later I got an advertisement for Y2K test software 'Are you Y2K compliant? Download the IntelliFIX 2000 Free Year 2000 Test’, while submitting to the engines. Kind of like watching a Coke commercial after paying $7.00 to see a movie at the theater. Took about 3 minutes to submit. Well so far it did not crash my system (Win98) 

Operation
I have never used a program like this before.  It appears to me and may be very obvious to others, that the program is interacting with a server at Intelliquis to prepare to register with search engines.  I think it is taking the data I entered about my site and sending the appropriate information in the correct format to the search engines. 

After  updating the data files it said the software version is out of date. The current version is 2.60. I clicked on "Get newest version" reentered all of the information including  32 characters comprising the CD-ID and REG numbers. I was then presented with the 1.4MB download. Version 2.60 downloaded without a hitch! Maybe my concerns were unfounded. So far, other than some in-your-face marketing inconveniences, there were no real problems. 

The following screens present the program inputs better than words: 

Starting Web Site Traffic Builder.
When you run WSTB for the first time the book states , "... be connected to the Internet and have your browser running.  This allows WSTB to locate and copy the most current database information to your computer’s program files." I don’t know what files are being brought in but it seemed to be quite a lot since it took about 5 minutes for the process to complete.  The number of search engines available is now 742 and  I have 1,400+ files in a directory called "data" under the programs default "tbuilder" directory. Looks like is was the list of search engines that were downloaded from the Intelliquis web site. The files have .awx extensions and appear to be the names of search engines. Here is a sample of the listing: (Does anyone know how to pipe files in a directory to a file when the files have spaces? Can’t use "list *.doc |files.txt" because you will list the DOS interpretation i.e 123eas~1.awx  fpreston@att.net) 

If those are search engines, I have not seen them before and I don’t readily see how one would access them. But there are over 700 and it looks to me that most are quite obscure. I don’t see how one tailors which engines are best for one’s particular site. But the program appears to give you a lot of options. 

The manual says "WSTB is currently capable of registering your site with over 600 Web registries. And the number is growing monthly!" I can attest to that. You can "enter up to 18 keywords that describe the content of your site.  WSTB then uses its vocabulary of over 2,500 words to match the 18 keywords you have entered and then generates a dynamic submission description that will ensure your site gets registered in the appropriate categories." There is also a special provision (method) to submit to Yahoo! And Snap.com. 

The manual describes what this standard version cannot do. It dedicates about three pages to what more you can do if you buy the Professional Version or Web Master version. 

In conclusion, if I were looking for a program to register my website with search engines and as a definite beginner I would rate this program as a $30 value.  I don’t know what it’s selling for but if I paid $30 for it I would be satisfied that I got the bang for the buck. It’s not complicated to run but there are some things that are going on that a person would really have to sit down for a few hours to figure it out. The website appears helpful and I was able to get a human when I called for assistance. The latter being very important. I don’t particularly like the advertising for the Y2K products nor the sales pitch to get the advanced version. 

You can go to the web site at: <www.intelliquis.com>.