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Most of the coverage I've seen focuses on the ability of UrlTrends to allow you to"View Any URLs Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Popular Search Terms and IncomingLinks".
And that's a great thing, to be able to see all of that from one place. But onegreat thing missed about this tool are that you can subscribe to changes to theresults via RSS -hands off monitoring of your site.
Fagan Finder's URL Info
This online gadget is like the Swiss Army knife of site information, giving youone-page access to dozens of pertinent check-ups. But monitoring relevant searchengine information like your backlinks, or the cached pages in a search engine arejust the tip of the iceberg.
You can use URL Info to chà ck that your HTML code is validated, translate your page,and if you're a blogger, discover where your site is mentioned in the blogosphere.
Spannerwork's Spider Simulator
Ever wondered what your site looks like to the search engine spiders that crawl theweb, looking for information to include in their databases? Go to this page to seewhat information is seen by the spider and what it skips over.
Spannerworks.com can also help you figure out how to troubleshoot content that seemslike it should show up to a spider but doesn't, with its HTTP viewer. They also havea tool that will analyze your keyword density.
GoRank.com's Top Ten Comparison
If you've been banging your head against the wall in an attempt to figure out whyyou haven't hit the top ten results in Google, GoRank.com has a page that can giveyou important clues to help you figure it out. One of my favorites, the Top Tencomparison report, will scrub the raw data of the top ranking results for a givenkeyword.
In studying the results, you may find it easier to understand where your ownoptimization efforts are going wrong. Don't forget to stop by Google for your APIkey at http://www.google.com/api as you'll need it to create your frà e account.
Search Guild's Keyword Difficulty Checker
This one's an old favorite of mine. When you find what you may think is an idealkeyword, before you start tweaking your pages, it's a good idea to run it throughthis tester. Using the Google API, it analyzes whether or not a given phrase will beworth your efforts.
Using Your Google Site Information Page
I've covered this in an earlier article, but just in case you missed it, we'll goover it again briefly hà re. (If you need more help following along, you can listento one of my recent podcasts for a convenient audio walkthrough.)
Open up your browser and go to Google's home page. Type ininfo:yoursitenameandsuffix. So if your site was ExactSeek.com you'd typeinfo:exactseek.com. You can also use site:yoursitenameandsuffix to find out whichpages have been indexed by Google's search engine spider.
This search will tell you pages that Google considers similar to yours. It will alsoshow sites that it considered linked to you, and show sites that carry your fullurl, hyperlinked or not. It's not 100% accurate as far as telling you all the sitesthat are linked back to yours, but what you can learn from this is which backlinksmatter.
From hà re you can also see the last day Google spidered your home page.
To see this in action, clà ck on the first group of information links, "Show Google'scache of yoursitename.com" If you look next to the word "cached" on the first line,the date is expressed also.
Sometimes it seems that the cached time for yoursitename.com andwww.yoursitename.com are different, so be sure and chà ck both.
Finding Information About Your Site In Yahoo
This document will tell you how to find out what sites are linking to you, give youthe results for how many pages of your site are in Yahoo, and more. Once you get tothe results page, you'll be able to view your cached pages, etc.
Discovering Your Site's Status on MSN
As the page in the help section states, you can use site:www.yoursitehere.com tofind out if a document at your site has been indexed. The results page will alsogive you the date of last caching.
Google Rankings
You'll need a frà e Google API key for this one, and this site has the direct linktelling you where to get one. You'll have to enter this key in order to query thesite for information on Google.
With Google Rankings, you'll be able to see where you rank within the top 40-1000results in Google for a given keyword. I recently noticed that it also displaysresults for MSN and Yahoo, with links to each search engine.
They also have some other tools that will track your keywords over time, as well asone they call the "Ultimate SEO Tool" that will measure your site's keyword density.
You'll already have to be well-versed in how to find good keywords to plug into thetool, but once you have that nailed, it's pretty reliable in telling you whetherit's worth your time to target that phrase. If you use flash on your site, chà ck outthe flash viewer on their utilities page as well.
The following tools are for monitoring your search results in the three major searchengines. It isn't an all-inclusive list, but rather a highlight of some of the toolsyou can use. (I'll point you to one of the master lists when we get into moregeneral tools in part three.)
Google Backlinks Checker
LilEngine.com's Backlink Checker will measure the number of links you have pointingback to your site against competing sites. Handy if you just want a quick comparisonof how many links you have versus others, though how much getting more links backwill help varies, depending on other factors.
Yahoo Search Rankings
From the same folks who brought you Google Rankings, using Yahoo Search Rankings,you'll be able to see where you rank within the top 1000 results in Yahoo for agiven keyword. If you just want to see your Yahoo rankings, it's quite helpful.
