All tools listed below fall under the following criteria:
- they are all useful for SEOs;
- they are all web-based (no desk-top ones or FireFox extensions so far);
- they are all free.
If you know of any online SEO tools that were not mentioned here, please comment and I will update the post. I will do my best to continuously update the article to delete the tools that are no more available and add new ones.
Table of Contents:
- Backlink Analyzing Online SEO Tools;
- Keyword Research and Brainstorming Tools:
- Domain Name Online Tools;
- On-Site Analysis Online SEO Tools:
- Search Related Online Tools:
- Website Traffic and Demographics Report.
1. Backlink Analyzing Online SEO Tools
| Options/Tools | Smart
|
Analyze
(currently not working) |
Link
|
Link Hounds Yahoo Backlink Info |
| Checks links to | Page | Page | Domain | Domain, page, all deep links |
| Best feature | Fast and smooth | Keyword-in-anchor-text search | Multiple sorting and filtering options | Data organization based on the linking domain |
| Anchor Text | + | + | + | - |
| PR | + | - | + | - |
| Linking page outbound links | - | Inaccurate | + | - |
| Nofollow highlight | + | - | + | - |
| Firefox Extension | + | - | + | - |
| Sorting options | - | - | + | - |
| Interface | user-friendly | simple | user-friendly | user-friendly |
| Set Preferences | + | + | - | - |
| Useful links | - | - | - | whois data; site web archive; Google cache; linking pages. |
More backlink checkers:
- Backlink Watch (checks Anchor text);
- Domain Backlinks Checker (sorts the results based on the first- and second-level domains);
2. Keyword Research and Brainstorming Tools
Tools that help expand your keyword lists with synonyms, related terms and keyword phrases.
| Tools/Features | What you will find there |
| Google Sets | Related terms (i.e. terms that are likely to appear in lists). |
| MSN clustering tool | Word clusters (keyword phrases). |
| Searchradar | Tag clouds and keyword definitions. |
| Keyword Map | Related terms (synonyms and keyword phrases). |
| Urban Dictionary | Related terms (related synonyms and urban words). |
Social Media Based Keyword Analyzers
Use social media sites to explore how people use and tag your core term, its popularity and related words.
| Features/Tools | TweetVolume | Twitter Search | Del.icio.us related terms | Facebook Lexicon |
| Data source | Del.icio.us | |||
| How to use it. | Compare up to 3 terms popularity. | See your term in live context. | See your term related tags. | See how often your term is mentioned across FB walls. |
Online Dictionaries and Glossaries that Help with Keyword Research
| Dictionary | What you can find there: |
| The free dictionary | Your keyword definition(s), set phrases/ idioms (use them to lighten up your writing style), examples of usage,
words of the same root (inflected words and derivations), thesaurus, classic literature mentions, keyword phrases, related acronyms. |
| Wordnet | Definitions and sample sentences using your key term. |
| Rhyme Zone | Rhymes (can be real fun to play with by the way), synonyms, antonyms. |
| Synonym.com | Keyword synonyms and antonyms. |
| Cambridge online dictionary | Essential definitions and keyword phrases. |
| Meta Glossary | The word definitions, related words and synonyms. |
| Reference.com | Your core term synonyms and definitions. |
| Merriam-Webster dictionary | Definitions and derived terms. |
3. Domain Name Online Tools
Dynamic Tools for Domain Name Brainstorming:
| Features/Tools | PsychicWhois | Domize | BustAName |
| TLDs | 6 ( .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us) | 3 (.com, .net, .org) | 3 (.com, .net and .org) |
| Brainstorming help | domain name suggestions based on your previous searches and related terms | shows domain names one-character shorter than the one specified | Mixes the given keywords, suggests synonyms, adds prefixes and suffixes, shows both singular and plural versions, drops last vowel, checks for both hyphen- and non-hyphen versions |
Additional domain name checkers and generators:
- DomainsBot (dynamically checks the availability of domain names for 6 TLDs: .com, .org, .net, .info, .biz, .us);
- InstantDomainSearch (dynamically and really fast checks the availability of domain names for 3 TLDs: .com, .org, .net);
- DomainNameSoup (suggests alternative terms for your core term, has a handy typo generator, adds words before and after your term);
- Suggest Name and (DotoMator) – has a fairly large database of available prefixes and suffixes that are sorted out in categories;
- NameBoy (generates the list of domain names based on your primary and secondary (optional) terms).
4. On-Site Analysis Online SEO Tools
On-page Keyword Prominence Research Tools.
Online SEO tools that help analyze keyword on-page usage.
| Element to analyze: | Ranks | SEOworkers | RankQuest |
| Title tag | + | + | + |
| Meta Description | + | + | + |
| Headings
|
+ | - | + |
| Alt tags | + | + | + |
| Anchor texts | + | + | + |
| Bold text | + | - | + |
| Text | 1-, 2-, 3-word phrases | 1-, 2-, 3-word phrases | 1-, 2-, 3-word phrases |
| Features/ Tools | Domaintools SEO browser | SEO Browser |
| General benefits |
|
|
| Additional features | optimization score and tips on improving it | page meta tags, domain IP address, header response, page size, total number of links, words and images, |
One more great tool to see text-only version of the site: LynxView
Page Size and Load Time Checkers
| Features/Tools | Web Page Speed Report | Page Size Extractor |
| Total page size | + | + |
| Images | total size of the images | total number and size of the images |
| JavaScript size | + | - |
| CSS size | + | - |
| Each page object size | + | - |
| Download time | + | - |
| Additional features | list of useful recommendations on reducing size of particular elements | total number of hyperlinks, full list of all links on the page |
Additional Site Diagnostics Tools:
- Bad Neighborhood Tool (scans external links on a page and detects ‘bad links’).
- Search engine SPAM detector (detects a few types of black-hat tricks: hidden text, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, etc).
- (Recently improved) Trifecta Page/ Site/ Power tool (allows only one search per day for non-pro SEOmoz members) – offers an exhaustive report on your site/ page power and ways to improve it.
5. Search Related Online Tools
Online tools that check any term(s) rankings across various search engines.
Most valuable rank checkers:
| Features/Tools | SeoMoz Rank Checker | Search Engine Forums Tool | Shoemoney Serps Script | SEObook Rank Checker |
| best feature | Archives the results | Checks multiple terms | Fast and easy to use | Advanced search options (+ international data centers) |
| export the results | Yes | No | No | No |
| several terms at a time | No | Yes | No | No |
| # of results checked | 100 | 10 | ~100 | 1000 |
| overall # of SEs | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| # of SEs at a time | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| link to the actual results page | Yes | No | No | No |
| registration required | Yes | No | No | No |
| term of use | Paid (with daily free 5 searches) | Free | Free | Free |
| browser plugin | Yes (Browser Button) | No | No | No |
| main drawbacks | Would be great if the history/reports could
be split into projects (i.e. domains checked) and SEs |
Checks only top 10 results | No way to export/save results | No export feature. |
Note: the tools may be checking different data centers, so the results can be slightly different from tool to tool.
More rank checking tools:
- Search Engine Keyword Tracker & Keyword Ranking Tool;
- Ventio Google Position;
- SEOChat Keyword Position Check;
- Searchenginegenie Rank Checker;
- Mike’s Ranking Reports.
- KeywordEnvy (checks up to 5 terms at a time and represents data in a handy graph.
Tools that Compare Different Search Engine Results
| Features/Tools | Prase | Thumbshots | Fuzz Find |
| # of SEs | 3 (Google, Yahoo, MSN) | 2 (Google and Yahoo) | 3 (Google, Yahoo, Live) (+Del.icio.us) |
| Additional Features | Sort by Google PR; start from any result;
set the min. PR to filter low-PR sites |
Graphic representation of ranking differences.
Highlight the site you want to track |
Sort the results based on
any Search Engine or Del.icio.us |
More search related tools:
- Pagerank Search allows to sort Google search results by Google PageRank or by relevance.
6. Website Traffic and Demographics Report
| Features/Tools | Alexa.com | Compete.com | Google Trends | Quantcast |
| Traffic unit of measurement | percent (compared to overall Internet users measured by Alexa) | number of people | (average) | number of unique people/ number of visits |
| Time range | 3 months | per month | (average) | per month / per week |
| Compare traffic | up to 5 domains | up to 5 websites | up to 5 websites | No |
| Demographics report | No | No | No | (U.S. only)
visitors’ gender distribution; age; household income; ethnicity; education. |
| Additional features | Shows traffic distribution across different countries; related websites; sites linking back to the one being checked | (U.S. only)
Reviews time spent on site compared to overall time spent in the Internet by US people (average change in this metric); average time spent on site by one person; number of pages per one visit. |
Reviews stats over different periods of time (e.g. past month, past year, in a given month/ yeah) on different territories (countries, states, cities). Besides, the tool will also show you “related” search queries and websites | Shows audience composition (passers-by, regulars, addicts) |
cool collection man ,thanx a lot
Another big thanks to add to the list of comments above … a great collection of SEO tools. The spam detection tool was a new one to me, as were the social media keyword analysers ….
Edwin Kyalangalilwa
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this is one of the best collections I came across in the net.thanx.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Very handy tools, many of them are new to me. Will try them out.
This is an amazing list. One of the most comprehensive resources I've seen around. Thanks
Almost complete list and most useful tools too… Thanks Ann for spend your time to write the list..
Great List
Really, Worth sharing this information. Good Work
Not sure why FireFox extensions are not included here, but I just installed SEOQuake to FF and it seems like a useful tool.
Thanks for the TweetVolume and Facebook Lexicon sites. These are going to be very useful.
I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own BlogEngine blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it.
Thanks for the link, these tools are very helpful.
I really want to thank you for writing this blog. And more importantly, I want to thank you for managing it after you first published it. Changing the blog information as the actual sites change is critical.
Thanks!
I'm going to use some of these tools, thanks!
Great comprehensive list. Was wondering if anyone has reviewed Market Samurai. I use this for several client accounts and find their tools very useful. They do not have a KEI factor in their keyword research, however, they do have title competition and can be focused in on in your project country.
Thank you.
Very useful tools.
Very useful tools.
Thanks for sharing a good collection SEO tools. I'll used tools sure.
Thanks for sharing a good collection SEO tools. I'll used tools sure.
Many unknown tools for me here. Appreciate the time invested to give us this awesome info. Just wonder why I am using other “commercial” seo tools, like market samurai, and other popular ones….are the owners of these using them?
Thanks!
Wooooow Great list Collection Seo Tool. thanks for Sharing
They do not have a KEI factor in their keyword research, however, they do have title competition and can be focused in on in your project country. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own BlogEngine blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it.