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:
- 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:
- Keyword Rank Checking Tools;
- Tools that Compare Different Search Engine Results;
- Website Traffic and Demographics Report.
1. Backlink Analyzing Online SEO Tools
Options/Tools |
Smart
backlinks
|
Analyze
Back Links
(currently not working)
|
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:
2. Keyword Research and Brainstorming Tools
Keyword 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 |
Twitter |
Twitter |
Del.icio.us |
Facebook |
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 |
SEO Browsers
Features/ Tools |
Domaintools SEO browser |
SEO Browser |
General benefits |
- find prominent elements (keywords) of the page;
- check page elements visibility and accessibility.
|
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:
5. Search Related Online Tools
Keyword Rank Checking 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:
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.
|