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SEO, SEM Tools - Reference Charts, Tools for Research, Analysis, Tracking, More, Page 1
Reference Charts, Meta Editors & Automated Tools, Search Engine Spider Simulators, Search Engine Submission Programs & Tools
This SEO, SEM Tools section includes annotated links to helpful search engine and search directory reference charts, free and commercial tools for Meta element tags, search engine spider simulators, search engine submissions and tracking, and free and commercial tools for creating search engine friendly sitemaps.
Do you have favorite SEO, SEM tools? Do you know of helpful tools to help with optimizing Web sites for search engines, tools for analyzing, tracking keywords and key phrases, for managing links, or other helpful SEO, SEM-related tools? Recommendations and suggestions for SEO, SEM-related tools are welcome and appreciated!
On this page:
- Helpful Charts About Search Engines and Search Directories
- Free Meta Element Editors, Automated Tools
- Free Online Search Engine Spider Simulators
- Free Page Rank, Search Engine Rankings Analysis Tools
- Free and Commercial Robots.txt Tools
- Search Engine Submission Programs, Tools
- Sitemapping Tools for Search Engines
Also within SEO, SEM Tools:
- Free and Commercial Keyword Research, Analysis, Tracking Tools
- Free and Commercial Link Analysis, Link Popularity Tools
Also within Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing:
- Articles, Tutorials on SEO, SEM, Search Engines and Directories, Optimizing Content, Conversions, ROI (6 pages)
- SEO and SEM Newsletters, Web Sites, Other Resources, and Books (1 page)
More Tools, Software within Web Site Resources
Helpful Charts About Search Engines and Search Directories
- Crawler Submission Chart
One of the most helpful charts out there with quick information about time frames for submissions, paid submissions or not, and more. Note: this chart is in the subscriber area. [Chart dated 09/13/2003 by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch] - Search Engine Ranking Factors
An incredibly helpful chart with a breakdown of what top experts find and recommend with search engine rankings. Also includes an estimated ranking importance scale. Covers: most important factors, in-document factors affecting ranking, site factors affecting the value of hosted documents, factors affecting the value of a link, url, technical, hosting & server side factors, detrimental ranking factors. Experts included: Danny Sullivan, Dan Thies, EGOL, Graywolf, Jill Whalen, Donna Fontenot, Michael Martinez, Bill Slawski, Ammon Johns, Scottie Claiborne, 2K, Todd Malicoat, Rand Fishkin. Fantastic resource here. You can also download it for offline reference (Word document). No date when this was done but looks current as of March 2006. [Article/chart by Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz.] - Search Engine Results Chart
Helpful chart that shows where each search engine gets the main results it displays. [Chart dated 07/23/2004 by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch.] - Who Powers Whom? Search Providers Chart
Chart that shows who the major providers are, as some search engines actually get their results from third party providers. [Chart dated 07/23/2004, but updated for 2006 by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch.]
Free Meta Element Editors, Automated Tools
- META Tag Builder
Great and free onlineMETAelement tag builder tool by Vancouver Webpages. [Free online tool by Andrew Daviel, Vancouver Webpages.] - META Tag Builder
This free online tool creates theTITLEelement tag, theMETACharacter Set element tag, theMETADescription element tag, and theMETAKeywords element tag. [Free tool by Scrub the Web.]
For more HTML-related tools, see HTML
HTML Tools.
Free Online Search Engine Spider Simulators
What do search engine spiders see when they visit your Web site? You can use these tools to check your pages to get an idea.
- Eye of the Spider
Free spider simulator that shows you what a spider sees crawling your page. Easy to use. Visit their SEO Tools section for more helpful tools. [Free tool generously provided by 123promotion.co.uk.] - Poodle Predictor
Enter your URL and Poodle Predictor will show you the 'Spider view' - what search engines probably see when they visit your page. The helpful 'Diagnostics view' gives you a a color-coded representation with warnings,TITLEelement text,ALTattributes text, elementTITLEattributes, and heading elements -H1,H2,H3. Be sure to read the The Rules we use in Poodle Predictor to see how this helpful tool works. Free tool generously provided by GRI Technologies. [Free tool generously provided by GRI Technologies.] - Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer
As Fred Langa states, “It intercepts and displays *everything* that transpires between a browser and any given Web page, showing you stuff your browser normally hides.” This is quite an insightful tool. Shows you: Request Type - GET, HEAD, TRACE; HTTP version, and more. You can also optionally test for user agents, encoding, auto-follow location (checks redirects). More. Very helpful indeed! [Free tool generously provided by Rex Swain.] - Search Engine Simulator
Insightful, helpful simulator to show what search engines would see for the Web page URL that you input. Great tool! Note that you'll need to add a file (it can be empty) to your server to grant permission for the tool to prove that it's your site that you're checking. [Free tool generously provided by DJ Delorie, Delorie Software.]
See also:
Free Duplicate Content Analysis Tools
Whether or not any of the search engines penalize or devalue duplicate content, it's nonetheless helpful to see if any of your content might be considered duplicate content so you can make sure your content is unique and more interesting.
- Block level shingle duplicate content analysis
Free online tool to check for possible duplicate content as well as content uniqueness. “This tool spiders a page, extracts the indexable text on a block level, creates 'shingles' (groups of words) and compares those to the other URLs you have specified. This algorithm can be used to help determine how similar different pages are - or how unique the content on the page actually is. It can make sense to run several URLs from the same site through this tool to determine the in-site duplicity. It can also make sense to run several related URLs through this tool to dermine how related their indexable content is.” [Free tool generously provided by Search Engine Tools by oyoy.eu.]
Free Page Rank, Search Engine Rankings Analysis Tools
- Google Rankings
You can check the rankings of a Web page with Google, Yahoo! and MSN using this free tool. You'll need a free Google API key to use it. (This tool is not affiliated in any way with Google.) [Tool developed by Graphite-Works eCommerce solutions.] - Supplemental Results Detector Tool (a.k.a. PageRankBot)
Quite an amazing tool, and available in Java and a scaled down version in PHP. Note that it does not detect which pages at your site are in Google's supplemental results. “The best (and only) supplemental results analyzing tool on the planet now available in Java. Whether you're an SEO or a webmaster, you can use this tool to make sure your most important pages are listed in Google's main index. Reviewed by a handful of high-profile players in the SEO industry including Aaron Wall, Andy Beard, Dan Thies, Red Cardinal (who helped me BETA test the tool), and Rustybrick over on Search Engine Land... Gives you complete control over internal PageRank distribution. Helps you visualize exactly what's going on with your internal links. Takes the guesswork out of solving supplemental results issues. Saves your work so you only have to deep crawl a site once. And a whole lot more.” [Free tool developed by SEO 4 Fun.] - YahooSearchRankings.com
Check the position of a Web site in Yahoo! using this free tool by inputting keywords and a URL. You can also do keyword analysis. [Tool developed by Graphite-Works eCommerce solutions.]
Search Engine Spam Analysis, Detection Tools
- Search engine SPAM detector
Terrific tool for helping you see potential problems with any of your webpages. Helps you see what search engines might consider spamming the search engines, even though it may not be your intent! Looks for keyword stuffing, doorway farms, and text hiding (and more as the tool develops further). This tool “analyzes a web page, searching for characteristics that search engines could consider spam” See also their Spam detector FAQ [Tool by Enrico Altavilla.]
See also SEO, SEM Tutorials Potential Penalties or Banning by Search Engines and Directories for helpful tutorials on potential penalties or banning by search engines.
Free and Commercial Robots.txt Tools
- Analyzing your robots.txt file
When you have a Google Sitemaps account, Google Sitemaps will provide you with helpful information about your robots.txt file so you can fix it, finetune it, and more. [Part of the Google Information for Webmasters section via Google.] - RoboGen
by Rietta Solutions, a visual robots exclusion file editor. The site states that you can easily create arobots.txtfile for your site. See also WebsiteTips.com's section, SEO, SEM Articles, Tutorias Web Robots and Robots Exclusion. [Software by Rietta Solutions.]
See also SEO, SEM Tutorials Design and Development for Search Engines Web Robots and Robots Exclusion.
Search Engine Submission Programs, Tools
Editor note March 2006: Note that the tools listed below might include optional automated submissions to search engines and directories, which could result in your site being penalized or even permanently removed from search engine or directory listings. Be sure to always read the guidelines and warnings for each search engine or directory for which you wish to use any automated submission features - that will help you stay informed and avoid potential penalty problems.
For more on this, see SEO, SEM » Articles, Tutorials » Design and Development for Search Engines.
Aside from this potential problem, the tools below can help you manage your Web site's SEO, SEM, and be quite helpful.
- Search Engine Commando
Site submission and management software for search engine optimization and promotion. Manage SEO, domain names, and more. - SEO Studio
Search engine optimization and submission software tools, self-described as “a complete software suite for Search Engine Optimization and WebSite Promotion to improve Search Engine ranking.” - SubmitWolf
Popular and well-respected site submission program by Trellian Software. Over 2.5 million downloads, SubmitWolf is a leading submission software program. - WebPosition Gold[*note]
Top ranked, highly regarded search engine submission software, provides advice, help, much more, in addition to specialized site submissions for each search engine. Easy to use, good customer support. Recommended by WebsiteTips.com (only without using the automated submissions feature).
Sitemapping Tools for Search Engines
Sitemaps with text links to important pages at your site can be helpful for search engine crawlers. In addition, Google uses an XML-based sitemap. The list below provides tools to help with creating sitemaps.
In addition, other sitemapping tools will create sitemaps in a variety of formats, such as Powermapper and others, including XML-based sitemaps. See also WebsiteTips.com's section, Information Architecture Software for Information Architecture, Sitemapping.
Sitemapping Tools for Google's Sitemap Protocol
- Category- or Date-Based Google Sitemap Template for Movable Type
Helpful template for Movable Type users that includes monthly and category listings in sitemap, too. [Article/tutorial dated 06/06/2005, by Cameron Bulock, Cameron's Thoughts weblog. hat tip: Six Apart Weblog.] - Google SiteMaps for Movable Type - now with correct Last Modified dates
Helpful template for Movable Type users. Includes last modified date of post if there are comments to that post, priorities, more. [Article/tutorial dated 06/06/2005, by Anders Jakobsen, for Anders Jacobsen's blog.] - Google Sitemap Generator
Google offers a free Python script that generates sitemaps using the Sitemap Protocol. You can download it via this link and learn more about it. [Part of the Google Sitemaps section via Google.] - Implementing Google'S New Sitemap Protocol
Information about Google's sitemap protocol, a helpful collection of links, and even a PHP script to help create your own. [Article/tutorial dated 06/05/2005, by James Archer, for The Return of Design.] - phpSitemapNG
A free, open source sitemapping tool that supports Google Sitemaps. You can use the online tool or download it to use from your own server. Requires PHP. [Sitemap tool by enarion.net.] - Third-Party Programs Based on Google Sitemaps
Helpful list of programs, discussion lists, that support Google Sitemaps. Tools include plugins for existing programs, online tools, downloadable tools. They note those that charge a fee. [Part of the Google Sitemaps section via Google.]
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