Integrity Plus - free for the first week of Feb

A few weeks ago, Integrity Plus came out and quietly took its place between the free Integrity website link checker and much pricier Scrutiny. Read more about the background.

So, to now give it the launch that it deserved, for a limited time you'll be able to grab a licence for the new Integrity Plus for free.

Integrity is the best free link checker for Mac, fast, accurate, efficient but no-frills. Integrity Plus adds some frequently-requested features - the ability to manage the settings for multiple sites, and the XML Sitemap functionality (generate, export, ftp) and a few more benefits too.

The offer ran till 7 Feb 2015 and is now finished. But you still get a free, unrestricted trial of Integrity Plus and if you like it, the price is very modest.

Keyword density (keyword stuffing) in Scrutiny

We've all seen Matt Cutts talking on the subject and I'm sure we all get it - it's not about counting keywords but a good quality human-readable page.

Keyword checking is still a frequently-requested feature. If you're auditing a large site you don't have the luxury of reading each page aloud to a colleague as Matt suggests. That's where a website scanner that alerts you to potential problems is useful.

This feature is in Scrutiny version 5.7 due for release soon (may be released by the time you read this).

While it does its regular scan, Scrutiny can now check the text content of the page for keywords occurring above a threshold that you set in Preferences (default warn level 4%).

(Note that this feature slows the crawl a little, therefore you have the option to switch it on or off on a per-site basis from your Settings for that site).

When you see the SEO table (above) select 'High keyword density' from the Filter button. If there are pages shown, double-click each to see a full analysis (below)

Sreensleeves album art screensaver as a desktop

There is a way to make the Screensleeves screensaver as your desktop.

It's a terminal command,

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &

The animations all work smoothly. The screensaver you get will be the one you have set in System Prefs > Desktop and Screensaver, so make sure that's set to Screensleeves. The theme and settings will be as per your options there (including whether it shows a clock or not).

Protip: Make sure your music player of choice is already running and playing when you use that Terminal command. If you want to stop the 'desktop screensaver' you'll need to use Activity Monitor to find the 'ScreenSaver Engine' process and kill it.

Integrity Plus. Filling the gap.

Shiela calling Orson...

Today was a big day. Integrity Plus came out of testing and onto the web.

It fills the gap between Integrity and Scrutiny.

I'm very proud of Integrity. It's cost much blood, sweat and tears (well maybe not blood but definitely the other two). After 8 years it has a very good reputation and a huge number of users.

It's a big plus if any product looks clean and simple. If you have such a product, it's difficult to keep it that way. As a developer you have a steady stream of requests for more features, buttons, options, dialogs. I can tell you that if you simply respond to every request, you end up with a monstrosity that's complex and confusing (I'm talking from experience... one of my other apps, not Integrity).

Many of the Integrity enhancement requests went beyond link checking. "If it's holding lots of data about my pages, why shouldn't it be able to export an xml sitemap? Highlight some SEO problems? Validate the html as it goes along?"

Only a short way down this slippery slope I realised that I couldn't simply call it "The best free link checker for Mac" any more. It became "Well, it checks your links, and it does this, that and the other too".

That's when Scrutiny was born. Integrity was pared back to fit its simple tagline and Scrutiny became the app that did so much more.

As a credible competitor for commercial apps like Screaming Frog (and to help ensure its credibility as a competitor) Scrutiny's price has risen appropriately.

When you make developing into a full-time job, getting paid is very difficult. Charging even a very small amount for an app kills interest in it. Moving Integrity from free to just a pound reduced downloads from thousands to a handful. That's incredibly disappointing.

The facility for making donations has always existed. Some folks have been very generous, for which I'm very grateful, but those lovely, altruistic people are unfortunately few and far between.

So the renumeration for the time that's gone into Integrity and its ongoing support and development
has to come from converting people to a paid app. It's a very big step for users to move from a free app to one (however well-justified) costing $95.

So this is where Integrity Plus comes in. It offers some heavily-requested features (multiple sites, xml sitemap). And hopefully without affecting the simplicity of the interface. All for a relatively modest amount (currently set at $8).

Don't forget that as I write this, the New Year Scrutiny 50% offer is still running.

A comparison of the features of all three apps is here.

The new Integrity Plus is here

Shiela signing out. Nanu Nanu.