Update 11/12/2010: This feature is no longer in beta and is now available to all Professional account holders.

Read more: custom domain tracking.

We’re currently beta testing a new feature for custom domain names. If you would like to use your own custom domain name with our tracking service and are interested in the beta program, please let us know.

The final custom domain feature will be available under a new pricing option above the Professional account.

Domains brought on during beta testing will be grandfathered in with no additional cost.

Requirements:

• You must have a Professional level account to participate in the beta program
• You will need to register and configure your own domain name
• Your domain can’t be in use for any other purpose. If you already have web site, you will need to make a subdomain (like subdomain.mydomain.com)
• Your profile must have a valid contact email (in case we need to contact you about your domain).

Checklist:

1. Let us know what domain you want to use
2. Point the A record DNS of your domain to our server
3. Tell us your account name, and notify us when the DNS is configured

Some Notes:

• This program is being beta tested. We expect to make changes to it based on customer feedback
• DNS configuration changes can sometimes take 24-72 hours to take effect
• Please let us know if you have trouble finding the IP address for linktrack.info

You may or may not have noticed that we recently rolled out v2.1 of Linktrack to our production servers. The update itself was a huge leap forward, but most of the public functionality is the same on the surface. We’ve been growing a lot over the last year, and this update was in response to our expanding user base.

Here are some of the changes you might notice:

• Re-vamped dashboard page to display more useful summary information
• Added adjustable date ranges on the tracking pages
• Revised “forgot your password” utility
• Reformatted the “visitor IP addresses” page
• Adjusted the layout of our pricing page
• New messaging and alert system
• Giant improvements to our API!

In case you missed that last one, there have been Giant improvements to our API!

This update laid the ground work for expansion and added some of the most requested features to our existing API. Now you can use it to create your own custom links (using any of the options and features you want) and check on their status from your own applications.

The API is an industry standard style RESTful interface with XML output. We’ll be adding JSON output in the future. You can get API credentials and view code examples on your “Account” page. Just look for the API link.

As always, your feedback drives our future development. If you have a comment or a question, please drop me a line any time.

I signed up for Microsoft adCenter the other day after an issue with Google AdWords.  Shortly thereafter I received an email (text below) describing the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.  I’m glad to see that AdWords will soon have a real competitor in the PPC advertising market.  Without competition, it’s easy to let your customer relationships become stagnant.

Microsoft Advertising adCenter
Dear Keeton,

Microsoft and Yahoo! have now received regulatory clearance to form the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance in the United States and European Union. This milestone is an exciting step in our effort to give your business a time-saving and cost-efficient way to connect with a larger combined audience of potential customers.

How the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance benefits you
After the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, you will:

Reach more potential customers: Search ad inventory from both the Yahoo! and Microsoft networks will be joined in a new, unified search marketplace powered by Bing™ , with a combined audience of over 150 million searchers in the U.S and nearly 577 million searchers worldwide.1
You’ll use a single platform—Microsoft adCenter—to manage your campaigns easier and faster. With just one buy, your search ads will reach users on Bing, Yahoo!, and other premium partner sites and networks, such as The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, msnbc.com, FoxSports.com, Facebook, and Buy.com.

What’s ahead
For now, it’s business as usual; there is no change to your account or service. Your ads will continue to serve on Bing search results pages, and you will continue to receive the same great service from Microsoft.

Both companies are committed to making this transition a seamless experience. Our goal is to bring the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance to the U.S. by the end of 2010, prior to the crucial holiday season, with additional countries following on a staggered schedule beginning in 2011.
As our transition dates approach, we will contact you with information about what to do next. In order to ensure you continue to receive important service updates, please verify your contact information is current in Microsoft adCenter. View our help topic: Change contact information.
How to learn more
In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance by visiting our new resource, searchalliance.com, where you’ll find plenty of additional details, including press releases, FAQs, and more!

We appreciate your business and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.

Sincerely,

The Microsoft adCenter Team

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Linktrack is now accepting PayPal!

If you have a free account and would like to upgrade using PayPal, just log in to your account and look for the “Upgrade to a Premium Account” link.  Premium users who wish to switch their billing to a PayPal account, just look for the “Update Billing Profile” link.

Thanks to everyone who requested this feature.  If you have any questions or need more information, please feel free to drop me a line anytime.

Thanks again,

Keeton

If your’e a regular LinkTrack user you probably noticed that we installed a new account system over the weekend.  This came mostly from the billion or so requests we received to make our link creation/link tracking system more user friendly and easier to organize.  There were also a few requests from the owners that we also do something to cover the expenses we’re racking up.

The solution was simple – we instituted a user account system where you can make links, track them, and keep them organized under an account name.  Same as always, but this way the links are tied to an account so you have more control over them and can make changes if you want.

We also added a few ‘premium’ features and gave people the option to upgrade their accounts.  Premium features are things like password protection on your  links, email alerts, set your links to expire at a certain time or not at all, turn them on and off, download account data, etc.

Lastly, we re-organized some of the data to make things easier to read, added some flashy graphs and tried to improve the look and feel without making it too cumbersome.

The result is something that we’re pretty proud of.  We’ve got a nice free system for people to use with some features that aren’t offered anywhere else and our users are already taking advantage of the paid service.  I asked a few of them and got a 50/50 mix of those who just want to support the service, and those who want to use the features which I think is awesome.

Please feel free to check out the new site.  If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please drop us a line anytime.

We’ve added a new blog to the web site! We’ll use it to let you know about the latest updates, news and happenings with the LinkTrack web site.

Brace yourself.