One of my favourite SEO tools, SubmitNow, has changed it’s pricing model from a single script licence purchase to a subscription based service.
It doesn’t really come as much of a surprise as the previous business model offered free software updates forever; not just updates to the script itself, but also updates to the database of directory websites it submitted to.
Whilst a change was inevitable, it came as a bit of a surprise to me as I’ve yet to receive any official notification. I only found out by checking the creator’s blog for any updates and seeing the July 7th 2006 post. Even then it wasn’t until I’d visited the links to the Digital Point forums (here and here) that I got to find out what had been happening.
It would seem that a customer-turned-business-partner has helped and inspired the change.
It leaves me wondering exactly where I stand as an existing customer. According to the Digital Point threads, existing script customers will
be taken care of
If the original offer of free updates hold true then those of you who bought a copy on my recommendation will have bagged yourselves a real bargain and just in time too!
Current pricing for the subscription service offering unlimited submissions for websites owned by you is $19.95 per month. Compared to other directory submission services that provide as much hands-off automation, it’s still a bargain to have your website(s) submitted to so many SEO-friendly directories.
Does this news affect my head-to-head test? It does and it doesn’t. It does because the version of the software I’m testing isn’t available any more, but the concept is still the same so the test still holds much value.
Technorati Tags: SubmitNow, SEO, automated directory submission, automatic directory submission
I’ve just received an email from Katherine, the creator of SubmitNow…
That’s good news for those who don’t mind the restrictions imposed by the service.
This second quote is the most important one for me. One of the disadvantages of running a submission service from a web server is the (most likely) static IP address(es) it’ll operate from. Some directories may have a policy against automated or mass submissions. With a static IP address, this will be much easier to detect and much easier for the directories to stop.
I had a directory that was being bombarded with junk site submissions day in, day out. I could see that the submissions were originating from a webserver and simply blocked that IP address from accessing my website.
Also, running SubmitNow from my own computer means that my data isn’t sitting on their server along with everyone elses.
There you go, folks. For those of you who purchased a copy of the SubmitNow application, you’ve now got yourself a $19.99 per month service for free, forever!