free seo tools -- any good?

[kidmercury]

http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html

that site seems to have a bunch of free tools for SEO purposes. any thoughts on the credibility of the tools on the site, or the site overall? seems like a handy resource to my novice eye.

[seobook]

there also is a wonderful seo blog which links to many good tools at XXX

[orion]

1. W3C Validations

The site cited in post #1 claims to be W3C Valid for XHTML and CSS by displaying the W3C logos. This is what we found.

The index page of ***//***.seocompany.ca and the page at ****://***.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html display the XHTML and CSS W3C validations logos. Validation tests at the W3C show the following

The URL ****://***.seocompany.ca/

a. passes the XHTML validation but reveals 4 warning signals
b. cannot be validated for CSS.

The URI ****://***.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html

a. does not pass the XHTML validation
b. cannot be validated for CSS

Once you place a W3C validation logo in a page, you better prove your claims. These logos are governed by the W3C Trademark and Servicemark License

These results could raise a credibility issue.

Now to be fair with them it could be that they have made some changes to the site and temporarily have lost the validation. This happens all the time. However, I cannot confirm that this is the case.


2. Site Tools

Which of the tools listed in the site we are suppose to review? The site looks like a repository of many links pointing to third-party tools.


Some Suggestions

I suggest that when a member of the forum opens a thread and submits a software/tool for review or beta testing, we should follow through rather than suggesting right away and in the same thread the beta testing/reviewing of other tools.

In other words, be on-topic, stay on-topic. If you want to review a particular software or tool, open a new thread. Trying to review a new tool in a thread that already discusses a product/service not only diverts the current discussion but creates unnecessary noise in the thread.

From time to time, please feel free to read the For Reviewers and Submitters sticky thread.


Orion

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by orion

In other words, be on-topic, stay on-topic. If you want to review a particular software or tool, open a new thread. Trying to review a new tool in a thread that already discusses a product/service not only diverts the current discussion but creates unnecessary noise in the thread.
Orion

sorry

I agree that this site is simply a directory of sorts to third party tools, however as long as they work, why not bookmark that page instead of 10 others?

[seobook]

Originally Posted by Chris Boggs

sorry

I agree that this site is simply a directory of sorts to third party tools, however as long as they work, why not bookmark that page instead of 10 others?

(I may be mistaken) but I think Orion's goal of reviewing the tools here is to perhaps as a community figure out what tools are the best and compile a list that way.

[kidmercury]

Originally Posted by kidmercury

any thoughts on the accuracy of

http://www.iblcheck.com/

?

i dont have any scientific reasoning, but intuitively i feel that it's off....

or how about

http://www.textlinkbrokerage.com/ibltest.php

?

that seems more useful to me, although once again i'm going off intuition here and nothing scientific

Hi, kidmercury.

Same issues. The idea is not to encourage reviewing multiple tools in the same thread. I have found that this triggers unnecessary noise (off-topic posts) in threads.

So, kidmercury, please decide for once which one to review now or feel free to place one in a new thread.

Orion

[orion]

Hi, Chris and Aaron.

Well put, Chris and Aaron. Since the initial post did not specify which tool we were suppose to review and Chris's original post did mention a tool, how about reviewing Chris's tool in a new thread? Chris, can you provide the link again? Then as Aaron suggested, we can dissect it with reviews.

BTW guys, feel free to suggesting a "wish list" or "do's and dont's" for reviewers and submitters in the ST (sticky thread).


Orion

[Chris Boggs]

my post actually mentioned one of our homepages, which also lists a variety of tools (mostly proprietary).

I would prefer to let kidmercury post one for review since he started the post. I will post another thread if I have questions. Thanks Orion for the expert moderating!

[kidmercury]

Originally Posted by kidmercury

Hi, kidmercury.

Same issues. The idea is not to encourage reviewing multiple tools in the same thread. I have found that this triggers unnecessary noise (off-topic posts) in threads.

So, kidmercury, please decide for once which one to review now or feel free to place one in a new thread.

Orion

sorry, i misunderstood. thanks for the clarification. one i'd like to hear what people's thoughts are is

http://www.textlinkbrokerage.com/ibltest.php

i suppose in light of all the factors that are involved in search engine placement, how accurate can any tool like this possibly be? for instance it does not factor optimization via copyrighting, or all the other countless factors. this is of course openly acknowledged as a tool that can only provide an estimate, but i wonder if the estimate is so off base that it is not really useful.

this tool in particular seemed better than most others i've seen out there that attempt to do the same thing -- but i still wonder if such a tool can be accurate at all.

[orion]

Originally Posted by kidmercury

sorry, i misunderstood. thanks for the clarification. one i'd like to hear what people's thoughts are is

****://***.textlinkbrokerage.com/ibltest.php

i suppose in light of all the factors that are involved in search engine placement, how accurate can any tool like this possibly be? for instance it does not factor optimization via copyrighting, or all the other countless factors. this is of course openly acknowledged as a tool that can only provide an estimate, but i wonder if the estimate is so off base that it is not really useful.

this tool in particular seemed better than most others i've seen out there that attempt to do the same thing -- but i still wonder if such a tool can be accurate at all.

Hi, kidmercury

1. 4 out of 8 of the pull-down menu options are adult-oriented material (sex and casino).

2. For one of my clients, comejen.com which ranks at the top 10 of the search results of most search engines, a query for "comejen" (without quotes) returns the following

"We suggest that you need at least 0 quality PR4+ inbound links with the anchor text 'comejen' to stand a chance at top 10 ranking in the Google search engine.

Keep in mind the number shown above only reflects PR4+ inbound links as shown by google. Other search engines show that there may actually be up to 1 lesser links that may be needed."


They try to explain what the results do not mean, but it is not clear what the results are suppose to mean.

3. They don't explain how they got the results. Great.

It may be a good idea if they have a detailed explanation for average users.



Orion

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by kidmercury

this tool in particular seemed better than most others i've seen out there that attempt to do the same thing -- but i still wonder if such a tool can be accurate at all.

That is a good question kidmercury. The claim made that a certain amount of PR4+ text links are required do beg for evidence of proof, as Orion suggests. How could anyone really accurately predict what the Google ranking range would be, based on simply one of the factors required within the secret algorythm? Even if you could predict with 90% certainty the numbers of links required (based on the reverse analysis of top ten sites, in this case), you would still need traffic and content...

[bobmutch]

The orginal post discusses seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html which is a site I own so I thought I would just drop a comment on this thread seeing how this thread ranks 32nd on Google at the moment (11-12-2004) for the key phrase "free seo tools."

My Free SEO Tools pages currently has 79 internet based SEO tools and I have been told a number of times this site is the best repository of internet based SEO tools on the internet. I one say it is at least one of them because I have not seen all the tool sites.

As far as the issue of w3c validation at Orion rasied, some of my pages need a few changes in them and I made them a while back. All the pages are validated xhtml 1.0 strict except for my directory which is validated html 4.1 trans.

I have some big changes coming up on my site in the near future where I will be listing each catagory of tools all on one page with the entry fields and tool discription on the page.

For example one for 123promotions tools check out http://www.seocompany.ca/test.html

You just enter the URL to be analysed into one field, put the Keyword in the other field, click on the Go button and it takes you to the tool interface results. This will look very sweet when all 79 of my tools are done.

Off course my collection is growing every month. I add around 10 tools a month.

[orion]

Hi, bobmutch.

When I did the test at the W3C the
****://***.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html
did not pass the validation. It does pass now. I'm happy to see you are taking care of validation issues and applaude you for that.

Orion

[bobmutch]

orion: Ya, I confess I had like it slip. Out of the 37 files on my site there were about 10 to 15 file with at least one error. The seo tools page had around 100 errors. I clean them all up in about 30 mins.

[orion]

Hi, bobmutch

I just wish other seos can be as dedicated as you when it comes to W3C Validations. Once they realize the value of well structured HTML DOM source code I think more seos could be inclined to implement validations.

Your site is a great resource for finding useful seo/sem tools. No doubt about it.


Orion

[bobmutch]

Orion: Having a higher content to code ratio in my opinion is one of those ~100 things in Googles Ranking algo that carry Ranking weight. Besides it is just a good pratice to keep things neat and where they should be.

Putting your presentation code into an external CSS file allows that code to be loaded and cached and can cut your file size down by as much as 50%. That means bandwidth savings and faster page loads.

I also hold that tables should be not used for presentation (except in the rare case where it takes more code to do it in CSS) but for tabular data. I alos test my sites with NS 6.x/7x; IE 5.01/5.5/6.0sp1; FF 1.0; Opera 7.x; Mozilla 1.7 and Safaria 1.2.

I code all my sites by hand and when I have a problem with something not working I find that many times all I need to do is go and run it though a w3c validator and poof, the problem goes away.

Here is a nice site for testing your web pages in Safaria if you don't have a Mac: http://www.danvine.com/icapture/

Also for those that are not up on why it is good to seperate presentation and code: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/

Also if you want to check your content to code ratio check out this tool: http://www.stargeek.com/code_to_text.php

[orion]

I agree with you. I'm also a big promoters of W3C Validations. That's why I always try to provide validation remedy services bundled with optimization.

Once we understand how search engines interpret the HTML DOM structure and which engines are sensitive to it, we can use this knowledge to our advantage. (See the WLR forum for a little hint).

As stated by the W3C, most definitely tables should be reserved for tabular presentation of data, not for site design/layout. Tables impose an unnecessary interaction between the browser and the HTML DOM. Tables also slower the rendering of a site, especially when nested tables are used for layout. CSS-based layout is a lot better.


Orion

[Robert_Charlton]

Originally Posted by kidmercury

http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html

that site seems to have a bunch of free tools for SEO purposes. any thoughts on the credibility of the tools on the site, or the site overall? seems like a handy resource to my novice eye.

I'm usually not impressed by free tool collections, but I've got to say that, at first look, this is one of the best selections I've seen. Thinking it would just be more of the same, I wasn't prepared to like it.

I've had a question for some time about online tools in general, and this might be a good place to ask... what is their privacy policy? I understand that this is a very vague question and a good answer would have to discuss tools on a case by case basis... but sometimes you're entering fairly sensitive information, urls and/or favorite niche phrases... and it does give me pause.

I'm less worried about tools with a clear business model, like attracting you to say a forum, vrs tools that are just there, with no other info or links to another site, but maybe all should be equally suspect. Not wishing to throw stones at one of my favorite tools, the PR search at prsearch.net comes to mind. If people are worried about the Google Toolbar, why not at least give a thought to what anyone might be doing with the search data that's entered?

Similarly, I've wondered about domain name availability tools on some registrar sites. I'm sure most are legit, but you never know whether you might be tipping off domain buyers to what's hot. Am I being too paranoid?

[kidmercury]

Originally Posted by Robert_Charlton

I'm usually not impressed by free tool collections, but I've got to say that, at first look, this is one of the best selections I've seen. Thinking it would just be more of the same, I wasn't prepared to like it.

I've had a question for some time about online tools in general, and this might be a good place to ask... what is their privacy policy? I understand that this is a very vague question and a good answer would have to discuss tools on a case by case basis... I'm less worried about tools with a clear business model, like attracting you to say a forum, vrs tools that are just there, with no other info or links to another site, but maybe all should be equally suspect.
Similarly, I've wondered about domain name availability tools on some registrar sites. I'm sure most are legit, but you never know whether you might be tipping off domain buyers to what's hot. Am I being too paranoid?

personally i don't think you're being too paranoid. i've seen a whole bunch of downloadable tools where if you read the legal agreement, it pretty much says that you are giving consent to spyware being installed on your computer. although it is worth noting that i've actually found this to be the case more often when people are trying to use the software as a revenue tool rather an as a freebie. most commonly i've seen softwares that have a free version and a premium version; part of taking the free deal is getting spyware put on your computer. it's typically in the legal agreement that first pops up during installation, but it's certainly not publicized too much, for obvious reasons.

because of this, i don't try any downloadable tools. the web-based tools, though, i'll regularly try -- although perhaps that is foolish, i don't know. i generally think most people who have a web-based tool are doing it to build inbound links, in which case they would want to keep a good rep so that links are more readily passed around.

[orion]

I pretty much agree with you guys. That’s why we have recommended users the reading of the For Reviewers and Submitters thread before providing login information or downloading anything. Reading the fine prints and Terms of Services (TOS) of these sites is very important as there is no such thing as "software angels".

Each time you give away information through login mechanisms, someone is getting the data. Additionally, when you download a toolbar or software, you’re at your own risk. There is no insurance against spyware. Mining user’s behaviors and user’s data is just the blood of Marketing and Business Intel 101.

In the Death to spying toolbars SEW thread, most posters seem to agree on the dangers of downloading toolbars. There is simply no spyware insurance or protection from someone collecting information at the other end.

I have seen an increase in the development of hybrids, metabars, and combos. These are the worst. Placing these in your system makes you even more vulnerable. Different ends may be getting the data through a single application.


Orion