Ask HN: Which tools do you use for tracking your SEO | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which tools do you use for tracking your SEO

10 pointstodorovS9 comments

Which tools do you use to track/monitor your page rank on google, visits, etc.

I've just setup a blog (first website) and I am wondering how to, for example:

1) Check my page rank on Google according to certain keywords

2) Monitor my daily visits and what drives them to my site - I am currently getting familiar with Google analytics for that

What tools are others using?

View on HN

I'm not so naive to think that people aren't already doing this all the time, but how is that the SaaS products mentioned in other comments are able to (and/or confident they will continue to be able to) avoid getting a C&D letter from Google? Isn't this a violation of their ToS?

Even using a supported API--which for Google seems to be limited to 100 queries per day--the search engines are officially OK with the submitting queries for the sole purpose of monitoring rankings?

(Looking at Google's new-ish terms of service, I see they are much vaguer about this now. E.g., "Don’t misuse our Services. For example, don’t interfere with our Services or try to access them using a method other than the interface and the instructions that we provide." <http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/>)

Nobody _actually_ cares.

There's a whole host of commercial tools out there (SEOMoz, SeoBook, Raven, SEMRush) which professionals use, but unless you're making revenue from your site they're probably not worth investing in.

You can however use Google Webmaster Tools that will give you basic SERP data.

I use http://micrositemasters.com for SERP tracking; Majestic SEO is great for monitoring backlinks but expensive. You can also use SEOMOZ for free for a month.

Thanks, I will try it out. Even better that it has a free account :)

MSM is great.

I use http://www.positionly.com for SERP tracking.

Thanks for the tip, looks good!

http://serpfox.com for SERP tracking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com