The OptiLink user interface is composed of one simple window with several "panels" selected via tabs that look a good deal like the tabs used on hanging file folders. Each of these panels presents different views of the linking structure of a page you select for analysis. These panels are selected by clicking the mouse on the tab, which brings the selected panel in front of the others.
The first panel is where user options are selected, the URL of the page to analyze is entered, and the OptiLink analysis engine started. Depending on the options selected and the speed of your connection, an analysis may take considerable time as it interfaces to the search engine and reads and analyzes Web pages.
Once an analysis is completed, OptiLink automatically selects this panel to the front. It provides a brief outline of the results found.
This panel compares the Topic of the selected Web page with the Reputation of the page. The Topic is measured by what words, and combinations of words, occur most frequently on the page. The Reputation of a page however is a measure of what other pages say the subject page is about. Reputation is measured by the number of incoming links that use various words and combinations of words. The "best" pages in any given category are likely to be those that have Topic and Reputation measures that are in close agreement.
It is well known that some search engines consider close adjacency in IP address in assessing the relevancy and authority of incoming links. In the table on the Domains Panel you will see all the domains that contributed links to your subject page and the IP address of each. A large number of domains clustered in the same Class C block, are likely to be partially or completely discounted by the more advanced search engines.
The table on this panel provides a view of the pages that link to your subject page in terms of Hubs and Authorities. An authority page can thought of as a very popular--authoritative--destination, with many inbound links and relatively view links to other pages. What links there are of course, would be very important. A Hub page is just opposite--it is more like a train station with numerous outgoing links. Hubs may have many incoming links as well if they are "very well known" hubs.
Use the Pages Panel to decide which page links are more important than others, and why.
The precise text used to link to your page will often not be the best it could be. The Links Panel is where you go to look at each of these links and potentially request that the linking site modify their link to you. Alternatively, it might be a source of inspiration or "customer" feedback about what others think your page is really about. Maybe they're right? It could be that you should change or enhance your page measures to move your Topic closer to your Reputation.
While the OptiLink link analysis engine is running, the log panel provides a blow-by-blow monolog of progress. This can also be reviewed after the fact for error conditions should the results displayed in the other panels appear incorrect.
This is an annotation window where you can enter whatever text you like. This window remains active in the free viewer, and the save command is enabled as well, so the Notes view along with the free viewer can be used by reviewers and other professionals that need access to the results of an OptiLink analysis, but do not need to perform original analyses themselves.
All the information that is presented on screen is available in printed form using the print command. If a subset of the information is desired, the print options dialog can be used to turn off undesired sections of the report.
The menus in OptiLink have been kept simple and straight forward. The File menu lists the print and print options command in addition to the expected exit command.
The help menu provides access to the 5 minute tour as well as the online reference manual. You will also the about command where the current program version and support contact information are provided.