A lot of search marketing companies produce their own SEO Tools, like geolocation tools, backlink checkers, header checks and various page evaluation tools using multiple data sources like Website Grader or SEOMoz’s new Trifecta tool. However, some of the most valuable are those created by the search engines themselves.
Google has led the way for some time, with the excellent Google Webmaster Central, but also ones that are not site specific such as Google Trends and Google Zeitgeist and the latest update to the Adwords Keyword suggestion tool, which adds actual search volume data. Then there is the “invitation only” Google AdPlanner, which identifies sites by demographics and other data.
Yahoo also has a number available such as Yahoo Site Explorer – where the link: command is the most comprehensive source of backlink data that SEOs have. Plus there is ability to check what pages are indexed, and useful page removal tools. There was also the detection of intent in search done by Yahoo Mindset which now appears to be offline. Of course, historically, the Overture keyword tool was a defacto source of keyword data for everyone.
Microsoft has also done its share of research, with the Microsoft AdCenter Labs - there are a few tools here if you can get past some of the technical language used. MS do have a commercial intent tool available.
But now, the search engines are themselves raising the bar in what they are providing to webmasters. Yesterday, Google launched the excellent Google Insights for Search (there’s a good article on how to use this data intelligently on Search Engine Land).
And today, Microsoft have launched a major update to the Live Webmaster Center, giving crawl errors and fuller backlink data. Whilst this is still lagging behind Google’s offering, it is a major advance in helping SEOs troubleshoot clients’ indexing problems.
SEO isn’t going to go away any time soon, and these tools assist us to help the search engines find, sort and classify sites to provide the most relevant results to their users. And that is what a search engine is about after all.
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