- 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:
- Keyword Brainstorming Tools;
- Social Media Based Keyword Analyzers;
- Online Dictionaries and Glossaries that Help with Keyword Research
- Domain Name Online Tools;
- On-Site Analysis Online SEO Tools:
- On-page Keyword Prominence Research Tools;
- SEO Browsers;
- Page Size and Load Time Checkers;
- Additional Site Diagnostics Tools;
- Search Related Online Tools:
- Website Traffic and Demographics Report.
1. Backlink Analyzing Online SEO Tools
| Options/Tools | Smart backlinks | Analyze Back Links | Link Diagnosis | 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) |
