If you have been running Backlink Index Express for a while- you know that it’s the best backlinks software out there.  A couple of my key design parameters when designing BIE was portability and automation.  I created Backlink Index Express to use text files instead of a database to store the program’s data.  I did this so you could quickly and easily move your install from server to server with just an FTP client.

I also wanted the product to be automated: just keep feeding the program backlinks and it just runs – and runs.  But one problem with these 2 design parameters – sometimes they are just not compatible, particularly for users with zillions of links.  As the program marches on, day after day, the files can get pretty big – and that will cause BIE to slow down.

Backlinks Index Express reads the files into memory – and that takes resources.  Most users won’t have any problem leaving your BIE install alone – but if you are processing lots of links, you’ll have to do a little maintenance to your /data folder periodically.

Using your FTP client, check the sizes of your BIE data files – if they are getting larger than 200K bytes – it’s time to do a little maintenance.  Look at your /data directory – the files that matter are the mylinks.txt, posts.txt and the postedlinks.txt:

If those are getting over 200K, you need to download them – (Keep a Backup!) and use a text editor to truncate or remove the top 1/2 of the lines in the file.  Chances are those entries have either been posted and indexed, or will never get indexed since they are old.

Now only do this if our BIE is running slow – run indexexpress.php in the browser, if takes more than 25-30 seconds to process, your files need trimming.

Also – you need to periodically clean out the /rsscache folder, as this folder can grow to a large size, and on some web hosts, BIE  can’t clean it out automatically.  So if you have lots of files in your /rsscache folder for BIE, delete them out.

Related posts:

1. How Backlink Index Express Works, Part III
2. How Backlink Index Express Works–Part 1
3. Common Issues When Using Backlink Index Express
4. Apply This Security Measure T0 BIE and PostFeedr
5. Backlink Index Express Tech Tips Wanted

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