Inofficial GSA Search Engine Ranker FAQ

[Sgt Kraut]

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.
Also note that I'm not affiliated or in another relation with any of the mentioned programs/services.

Do I need Private Proxies?
You don't NEED them, but it makes things a lot faster and some people want to stay anonymous.

What are good proxy providers?
I just wrote down the most mentioned proxy providers in the GSA threads:
BuyProxies, Squidproxies, Proxy Hub

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?
The developer recommends poweruphosting, there is a special discount for GSA users. Another often mentioned VPS provider is Berman hosting.

What about Captchas?
A lot of people are using a software like Captcha Sniper or Captcha Infinity and an online service like DeathByCaptcha or ShaniBPO as backup.

Why does GSA ignore my PR filters?
Uncheck "Also analyse and post to competitors backlinks" and "Use URLs from global sites lists if enabled".

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

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.

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.

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.

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-<filename>% - 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-<folder>% - takes content of a random file in that folder
%file-<file>% - 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)

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?
One license is for one PC. You can theoretically run two copies at the same time, but please support the developers and buy another version.
It is already very cheap, some would say too cheap.

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".

Should I read the whole thread + the other thread + watch all videos?
YES, not only to learn about using GSA, but also to learn about setting up successful backlinking campaigns.

More Info:

Official Docu

GSA forum

s4nt0s Youtube channel

Sell thread

Old, closed thread


If I've missed the answer to a basic, often asked question, or did any mistake, please let me know.

Regards,
Erbsensuppe

 

[SEOWhizz]

Overall good basic FAQ. Here's a few additions:

Do I need a VPS?
No! But note, usually you want to run the software 24/7 with a fast internet connection.

Agreed. You have to be careful if you have a home internet connection with bandwidth limits as tools like GSA SER can eat up quite a bit of bandwidth, so a VPS or dedi server is a good idea.

What about Captchas?
A lot of people are using a software like Captcha Sniper or Captcha Infinity and an online service like DeathByCaptcha or ShaniBPO as backup.

I'd avoid Captcha Infinity. You can just use Captcha Sniper as the primary captcha solver and use DeathByCaptcha as a secondary.

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.

You can also: Pause the project after XX submissions or verifications for the day.

Can I run two instances of my copy at the same time?
No. Please support the developers and buy another version.

You can run 2 copies of GSA SER simultaneously as long as each is run on 2 different machines.

How to combine Scrapebox and GSA?

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.

As well as the supported platforms, you can code your own new platforms to use. Also the Platform Trainer should be out soon.

 

[Anon752]

Really well done. Thanks for putting this together. Now we have somewhere to send people when they repeat.

 

[Ozzmannor]

Why does GSA ignore my PR filters?
Uncheck the "Also analyse and post to competitors backlinks" feature.

add -> uncheck "use global site lists"

How long does it take to verify my submissions?

It can take up to 5 hours until a submission is checked. Be patient.

fix -> up to 5 days

 

[Sgt Kraut]

You can also: Pause the project after XX submissions or verifications for the day.

I don?t have this option, but I haven?t updated for a while. Added.

You can run 2 copies of GSA SER simultaneously as long as each is run on 2 different machines.

I?m quite sure Sven said that we need to buy another version. Can somebody confirm what SEOWhizz said?

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.

Added.

Why does GSA ignore my PR filters?
add -> uncheck "use global site lists"
It can take up to 5 hours until a submission is checked. Be patient.
fix -> up to 5 days

Both fixed. The error with 5 hours was not mine by the way, Sven wrote this in his documentation and I just copied it. But I know it is indeed 5 days.

Thanks for your help!

 

[SEOWhizz]

I'm quite sure Sven said that we need to buy another version. Can somebody confirm what SEOWhizz said?

Here's see what the sales thread says:

Licensing: You can install the software on as many computers as you want, but don't run it on more then 2 computers at a time. When the software is run on more then two computers at a time it will trigger the server to shut down the license.

 

[s4nt0s]

Sven does prefer that people buy 1 license per PC. He did say that he didn't really care if they used it on max 2 machines but their automated licensing system might send an automated message that it should only be running on 1.

From now on we'll say 1 PC license for new customers so they don't get confused.

 

[Sgt Kraut]

Changed:

Can I run two instances of my copy at the same time?
One license is for one PC. You can theoretically run two copies at the same time, but please support the developers and buy another version.
It is already very cheap, some would say too cheap.

Added:

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.

 

[Sgt Kraut]

I can't edit my thread, but if I could I would have added:

How can I add new engines without updating the whole software?
Right-click on a running Project -> Modify Project -> Use New Engines

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".

Where can I find a decent badwords list?
You can put a badwords list together yourself using sites like http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words and http://www.noswearing.com/dictionary or you use lists posted by users, e.g. this one.

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.

How can I display the diagram?
Right-click on a project, select Show URLs -> Submitted or Verified -> Stats -> Diagram.

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.

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.

 

[Sgt Kraut]

Today I got XY submitted and YY verified... is this normal?

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.

 

[wannabie]

Anyone know how to match the keywords to the right URL?

It's url#keywords isnt it?

 

[SEOWhizz]

Anyone know how to match the keywords to the right URL?

It's url#keywords isnt it?

Yes, the basics are:

http://www.domain.com#KW

[FONT=arial]or with spintax:[/FONT]
{http://www.domain.com#KW1|http://www.domain.com/URL2#KW2|http://www.domain.com/URL3#KW3}

[FONT=arial]or with spintax keywords only:[/FONT]
 http://www.domain.com#{KW1|KW2|KW3}