Help Menu
Sign Up/Submit Articles
Welcome to the 'sharp end' of the program. Take a look below. By the way, Freebieads.co.uk is my classified ads site - so if any of the advertisements take your interest, please click - and I'll get paid!
Anyway, the bit I'd like you to look at is the bit at the bottom of the image above - which is replicated below.
First thing to note is the url, all ready to go in the Article site text box (http://www.articledashboard.com/).
A url will ONLY appear there if an Article site list (remember, the file of urls with the .urls extension) has been loaded by means of navigating to the file via the small button (...)in the File Paths Manager.
Next, select the Join radio button. The button to the right of the box with the url displayed will change to Join Article Site! as illustrated above.
Since you are choosing to join the article directory sites, what else would you need? The personal details file (Path to Details) you created earlier - right? If it's not loaded, and you click the Join Article Site! button, you'll get an error message and then be taken back to the File Paths Manager so you can load it.
The 'Dry Run' checkbox
The other point to note - and it is an IMPORTANT one - is the Dry run check box, which is all ready checked by default.
When checked, the sign-up form fields in each article directory form are filled in automatically, as they are meant to be, but the Submit button on the form IS NOT CLICKED. Therefore, the form is not actually submitted to the article directory. It is a 'dry run'.
To actually submit the form to the directory, uncheck the Dry run checkbox and click the Join Article Site! button again. Now the form, with all fields filled in, will this time actually be submitted to the directory.
A 'dry run' can be initiated when adding a pen name, or submitting an article. That way, you can see if all is ok, that the form fields are being filled in correctly, before properly submitting the sign-up form, or adding a pen name, or submitting an article.
The 'Check cat' checkbox
You'll find this next to the Dry run checkbox. Make sure BOTH are checked. The Article radio button should also be selected. The caption on the main button should have also changed - to Submit Article!. Now click it.
An error message should result - because you've not loaded the article version(s), the titles text file, the categories text file etc. Now navigate to each of the files in turn and load them into ADSubmitter.
Notice the small square button with an "!" on it, just above the two check boxes? Click it and you should see the following.
You can return to the previous view by clicking either of the two Hide buttons, as seen in the illustration above.
Now, with the Dry run checkbox checked and the Article option selected, the caption at the top of the large listbox on the left should read Article submit dry run. Uncheck the Dry run checkbox and it should read Article successfully added.
In other words, the caption mirrors the settings/options chosen. Check the Dry run checkbox, the Check cat checkbox, and select the Article option and the large listbox caption should now read Sites with matching category. If it doesn't, toggle either checkboxes until it does.
Now if you click the Submit Article! button, ADSubmitter will go through every article url and check whether it can match the category or categories you've chosen for your article. If it finds a match, the url is added to the large listbox.
At the end of the run, you'll have a list of article directory urls matching the category of your choice. Save it by clicking the Save list button at the bottom of the listbox (call the file something meaningfull).
You can repeat the above with the signing up process, thus obtaining a list of sites you've successfully joined. The same when adding a pen name.
That's the large list on the left taken care off. The two smaller listboxes, one on top of each other, on the right hand side, show Timed out sites (top) and Errors - 404(bottom) etc.
You can do three things here with either list. Highlight an entry then click the button Click to load in browser and your default browser will load the site, so you can see physically what the problem is. Or you may not be able to figure out what the problem is.
Once the examination of any problem sites has been completed, click the button Clean up url list and ADSubmitter will remove any urls from the Article sites list loaded. Simply save the cleaned up list.
Of course, if on examination, a site appears to be ok, and consequently you don't want it to be 'cleaned' from the Article sites list, highlight the entry and double click to delete from the listbox. That way, it won't be deleted from the Article sites list.
NOTE: use the above with caution. A site which has timed out on one day, may not time out the next day. Or an error may suddenly be fixed. But if a site consistently appears in either list then maybe it should be removed. It's all completely up to you.
Now, if you are happy with everything, UNCHECK the Dry run checkbox to sign-up with a directory, add a pen name, or to submit an article.
Note: be prepared to receive a LOT of emails and to spend a fair bit of time confirming your email address to each directory.
How do you keep
track of which sites you've successfully signed up with, or not?
Easy - just run the the whole
sign-up process again. A directory will not allow you to sign-up twice
with the same email address - and will tell you the email address is all
ready in use.
However, if the directory is one you've never signed up with before, everything will proceed as normal - and you'll receive a confirmation email from them etc.
It's the same when adding a pen name. The directory will tell you the pen name is all ready used by you.
That's it! If you've any questions then contact me at info AT freebieads.co.uk.