LinkScan 5.2 - New Reports for Better Site Management & Quality Control

San Jose, CA, December 8, 1998. Electronic Software Publishing Corporation (Elsop) introduces a number of new features in LinkScan version 5.2 that greatly enhance its power and flexibility in website management and the quality and performance of a website.

A successful website must have no broken links. It must also load rapidly, have very few redirections, have clear page titles, and be easy to navigate. LinkScan enables an administrator to ensure these important qualities even on huge websites or intranets with multiple content managers and across many departments. LinkScan uses multi-threaded simultaneous processing which enables it to check external links at a rate in excess of 40,000 links per hour. A number of customers check sites in a single pass that have over a quarter of a million documents.

In this version we have improved HTTP navigation (the Execute command) for validating dynamic content (CGI scripts, Server Side Includes etc.), enhanced several of the LinkScan Reports and added some completely new reporting options. Some of these are directed at enhancing web site quality other than link checking. Some of the specific enhancements include:

The Summary/Detail Report has been enhanced with an option to sort the documents by the number of "Inline Bytes". The Byte Count includes the document itself, any inline images (<img src> but not <img lowsrc> tags), background images and image buttons. Each unique image is only counted once - we assume that the client will cache multiple references to the same image within the same document. In-line images references to remote servers are also counted if LinkScan can reach them via HTTP and that the server will return a size header without having to download the entire file. This report enables the user to make sure that every page on his website meet size criteria that make it load fast.

The Summary/Detail Report has also been enhanced with an option to display all documents older than "N" days. The Summary Statistics Report now displays separate tables for Internal and External links. The Summary Statistics Report error counts are now hyperlinked to the corresponding Detailed Report.The All Pages Linking Report displays separate tables for "Links To:" and "Links From:".

We have added the new Redirections Report to summarize all local redirections including the missing "/" on directory references, <META HTTP-EQUIV REFRESH> tags and actual HTTP redirects.

Several Reports provide for Include and Exclude expressions that may be matched on Referer or Target. Include/Exclude expressions may now be matched on Referer and/or Target. Sometimes it's Referer OR Target and sometimes it's Referer AND Target, depending on the context.

When scanning for Orphaned Files, user may control the depth of the scan in terms of directory levels with the new Maxdirlevels configuration option in linkscan.cfg.

We have added the Noorphans command option to linkscan.ign. This will Exclude all files matching the specified expression from the Orphans Report without effecting any other Reports.

We have added the new Autohttp configuration command to linkscan.cfg. When navigating the Website via File System navigation, LinkScan can automatically attempt HTTP access when file system access fails to locate a specific file. This may be used to eliminate the requirement to configure server aliases and redirections but with some loss of performance. Note: file system access is typically 5 to 10 times faster than HTTP access.

The LinkScan Reports no longer require the use of Cookies for storing individual user preferences. The system will use cookies if available, otherwise it will maintain current settings by passing them via the URL. This avoids random problems that some users have reported with certain browser installations.

We have improved the detection of, and recovery from, several rare exception conditions. Additional diagnostic capabilities have been incorporated to facilitate problem investigation and resolution in conjunction with Elsop's Technical Support personnel.

Free fully functional evaluation copies of LinkScan 5.2 may be downloaded (approximately 300 Kbytes) from the company's website at:

http://www.elsop.com/linkscan/

For current users of older versions of LinkScan, we have put together a brief summary of reasons to upgrade to 5.2 that outines the features and benefits to be obtained at the following URL:

http://www.elsop.com/linkscan/upgrade.html

LinkScan is being used by such large and diverse organizations as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Silicon Graphics, the University of Cambridge (UK), the United States Department of Defense, Goethe-Institut, the California Institute of Technology, StorageTek, HBO, Shell Canada, Australia's Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Rueters, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwest Airlines, Brown University, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the MITRE Corporation, the Ford Motor Company, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Walgreens Pharmacy, the Boeing Company, Business Week, the Swedish EPA, Molecular Simulations Inc., 3Com Corporation, the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Ericsson.

LinkScan operates on all Unix Servers (including AIX, BSDI, FreeBSD, Digital Unix, HP/UX, IRIX, Linux, and SunOS/Solaris flavors) and Windows NT 4.0 servers with Perl 5. Free fully functional evaluation copies of LinkScan 5.0 may be downloaded (less than 300 Kbytes) from the company's website at: http://www.elsop.com/

LinkScan 5.2 is priced at 750 US dollars. Version 5.2 is a free upgrade to purchasers of version 5.1, 5.0, 4.2, 4.1 and 4.0. Upgrades from versions earlier than 4.0 may be purchased for 250 US dollars. Volume discounts are available in single order quantities of five copies or more. Orders may be placed online via a secure server. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express cards are accepted in addition to payment by check or money order.

ABOUT ELECTRONIC SOFTWARE PUBLISHING CORPORATION (Elsop)

Founded in January, 1997, privately-held Electronic Software Publishing Corporation's mission is to provide the most advanced high-quality software for quality assurance and management of internet/intranet websites. Elsop prides itself on providing very responsive and comprehensive customer support and assistance to prospects and customers alike.

EDITORIAL CONTACT

Kenneth R. Churilla
President
[email protected]
1-408-323-3030
Electronic Software Publishing Corporation
1361 Shelby Creek Court
San Jose, CA 95120