SEO Tools (that don't suck)

There really is a ton of tools online to aid SEO/M work but sadly many of them do more harm than good. Here is a list of tools separated by category that every SEO should know. If you feel like your tool should be listed contact me and I might include it here.

Alexa Tools

Owned by internet giant Amazon.com, Alexa is a California-based company that provides web traffic statistics for other websites. It works by monitoring users who have installed the Alexa Toolbar, an optional download for Internet Explorer users. Because of this, many argue that Alexa's results aren't accurate at all.

Still, Alexa provides an API for developers. Applications can be built to monitor a site's ranking and that of a competitor's.

  • Alexa Challenge
    This tool compares three different sites based on their Alexa traffic rank and page views per visit. A traffic score is then calculated based on an algorithm. The results are then presented in a podium-style, with the winner at first place. The tool also provides a table of statistics, if you need your data organized in a neater fashion.
  • Alexa Related Rank Check
    Enter up to ten different domains and receive the 1 week, 3 month average and 3 month up/down Alexa Ranking. Very useful to see how your competitors' are doing, but remember that Alexa results could be skewed. This tool can be a little flaky at times; trying hitting the refresh button if you don't see any results.
  • Alexa Developers' Corner
    This section of the Alexa website contains information for using Alexa's Web API. It's meant for developers to build applications that can utilize Alexa's vast array of data. You can build search engines, widgets as well as use Alexa ranking data and site thumbnail images in your application.
  • Alexa Traffic Rankings
    If you have a localized site, this tool could help you see where you stand with your competitors. It shows the top sites in a specific country of your choice. This data is more accurate when there are lots of users contributing data; in smaller countries without widespread internet access or with low literacy rates, the data could be skewed.
  • Alexa Directory
    Alexa has a 'Directory' section on its site, although the core data is actually provided by the Open Directory Project. To get your site included in the Alexa Directory, simply include it in DMOZ. The Alexa Directory is easy to navigate, and enables a user to view an incredible amount of data for each of the listed sites.
  • Alexa Toolbar
    The Alexa Toolbar is the method by which Alexa obtains it's metrics; whenever users surf to a website, the toolbar will record the site's URI, which is then used for statistical purposes. The information collected can tell about how the internet is used, what's important, etc. The Alexa Toolbar contains no spyware, adware or advertising.

Backlinks

Backlinks are links from all over the internet that point to a specific website. People will usually link to interesting content, so search engines naturally use the backlink count to gauge a website's popularity. Most search engines can return the number of backlinks pointing to a site, usually by invoking a command the site's URL.

For SEO purposes, monitoring the number of backlinks your site receives is rather important, although you should also pay attention to other on-site factors like keyword density and title text.

  • Yahoo!'s Site Explorer
    Arguably the best of the lot. Site Explorer not only monitors the backlinks to your website, it also keeps track of the different pages within your site. The results are arranged neatly, and are updated constantly. Yahoo also provides a Site Explorer API, so you can create scripts to monitor your online presence.
  • Back Link Analyzer
    A free link analysis tool from Aaron Wall, author of the SEO Book. You get your results from Google, MSN and Yahoo on a huge spreadsheet, which contains detailed information like backlinks, anchor text, etc. The only downside to this application is that you have to register with the Google API, and your queries are limited to 1,000 per day for Google and 5,000 per day for Yahoo.
  • Backlink Builder
    Instead of constantly monitoring, why not actively build your backlinks? Backlink Builder from Webconfs.com does just that. It searches the web for sites that contain certain phrases like "Add Link", "Add Site", "Add URL", "Submit URL", etc. Depending on the keyword or theme that you're looking for, the results could very well contain potential backlinks.
  • Google Search
    If you head over to Google and typed link:http://site.com/, you will see a portion of the total backlinks. Notice the word 'portion'; Google certainly finds a lot more backlinks, but only a subset of the results will be returned. Also, you cannot use the link: command together with other advanced search operators.
  • MSN Search
    MSN search also uses the link: command, similar to Google search. However, it is capable of producing more results when compared to Google. In addition it also provides the linkdomain: command, which shows all backlinks that point to any page on the site. Unfortunately, the results it returns is still not as complete as Yahoo!'s.
  • Yahoo! Search
    Yahoo search produces the most complete backlink results that you will ever find. The two familiar commands, link: and linkdomain: still work here. However, since Yahoo! already has an API to monitor backlinks, they will probably begin blocking backlink queries that don't go through Site Explorer.

Domain Tools

Domains, as everyone knows, are website address (e.g. google.com); you type it into your browser, and a DNS server (domain name server) translates that into an IP address pointing towards your destination.

Whether or not you're just looking up a domain to purchase or to link to, there are tools that can automate that process. They can check a domain's IP, host and a lot more.

  • Domain Age Tool
    The age of a domain name actually makes a difference when it comes to search engine results. The older a domain, the more trustworthy it's supposed to be. If you're buying domains from a private seller or another domainer, use this tool to check the domain's age. Domain Age Tool uses Archive's Wayback Machine to determine the age.
  • Domainsbot
    This is probably the fastest way to check whether a domain is available (or not). Simply begin typing into the query box. Because it's powered by AJAX, the results are returned in near real-time. Returns results for several top-level domains including .com, .org, .net, .biz, etc. If the domain is not available, Domainsbot can also offer recommendations based on the query text.
  • Bulk Class C IP Address Checker
    This IP address checker will report the IP address, Class C block and Class C subnet from a given list of domains. Why would you want to check that? It's because today's search engines are using historical and IP addressing data to detect networks of linked websites. Using this tool, you can detect the host and IP address of potential linking partners.
  • Bad Neighborhood Checker
    Bad Neighborhood Checker scans all the links on your website and flags possible links that point to 'bad neighborhoods'. These so-called bad neighborhoods are sites that have been penalized probably because of excessive spam, black hat SEO, etc. Linking to these sites can pull the rank of your own site down, so be wise when linking out. Use this tool as a guide.
  • Domain Dossier
    With Domain Dossier from CentralOps.net, you can perform an IP to host, host to IP and traceroute test. In addition, you can also obtain the whois zone file of a domain/IP address and perform a scan of major services (FTP, SMTP, HTTP, POP3 and IMAP). With the results, the tool will also map the server's physical location on the world map. Worth checking out!
  • HTTP Header Viewer
    Shows the exact HTTP headers that your web server returns when handling an HTTP query. It's very handy for times when you need to mess around with the server. Also used to debug what cookies are being sent, any redirects that the server issued, mime-types, server information as well as HTML metadata. Presented in a simple and easy-to-use interface.

Firefox Extensions

These days there are dozens of choices when it comes to browsers. Although Internet Explorer may still be king, Firefox is probably the best browser for SEOs, mainly because of its open-sourced nature as well as support for plugins.

There are plugins to automate some boring and tedious tasks like obtaining PageRank, or checking backlinks. Every SEO should have these plugins under their belt (or at least in their plugins folder).

  • SEO for Firefox
    This is another one of Aaron Wall's tools. SEO for Firefox retrieves a lot of useful information and inserts it into the SERP pages from Google and Yahoo!. For example, it can return Alexa rank, number of pages in dmoz, number of RSS subscribers via Bloglines, Technorati rank, del.icio.us links, age, etc. Currently used by over 50,000 webmasters.
  • LinkChecker
    Created by Kevin Freitas, LinkChecker is capable of checking all links on a webpage. Depending upon whether the link is broken, good or a forwarded/forbidden link, the plugin will highlight the link with a certain color. Highlight colors can be customized by the user, and it also includes a user-editable list of banned keywords.
  • User Agent Switcher
    The User Agent Switcher allows the user to arbitrarily set the User Agent when browsing to different sites. For SEO purposes, set the user agent to Googlebot. Useful for finding any sites that still practice cloaking (showing a different version of the website to the search engine crawlers). Works in Firefox, Flock and Seamonkey on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
  • SeoQuake
    SeoQuake is a little plugin that displays a huge amount of search engine parameters. It differentiates between normal and nofollow/noindex links, display extra information on the SERPs and much more. Take note that if you consistently use a large amount of parameters, you could be banned from the respective search engine.
  • Google Toolbar for Firefox
    The Google Toolbar for Firefox falls flat down when compared to SeoQuake (above), but it still does several useful things. If you're running on an older version of Firefox, the enhanced search box offers suggstions based on your typing. It also displays the PageRank as well as other features like Bookmarking, Send with Gmail and even a WordTranslator.
  • Yahoo! Toolbar for Firefox
    Yahoo! also has a toolbar for Firefox; although it isn't primarily for SEO, it's still useful for general web browsing. It comes with a spyware removal tool and a pop-up blocker, two very important tools for internet users. Beginning with version 7.1, Yahoo! has also added the ability to view RSS and Atom feeds. Users will be alerted when their favorite feeds have been updated.

Google Tools

Google, the biggest search engine in the business, provides their own set of tools for both webmasters and SEOs alike. Although these tools might be lacking in one form or another, they are still very helpful when it's time to optimize for Google.

These tools are hosted by Google, so naturally they're all free. With Google's colossal amount of computing power, these services should be running at top-notch speed. Use them to gauge your audience and improve your Google rankings.

  • Google Webmaster Tools
    Probably the greatest tool that Google has to offer. Allows you to your search engine sitemap(s), monitor backlinks and monitor Google's crawling of your website. It also reports of any crawling difficulties that the Google bot encounters on your website (HTTP errors, URLS restricted by robotst.txt, unreachable URLs, etc.).
  • Google Analytics
    There are lots of options when it comes to web statistics, but Google's (free) solution does a pretty good job of it. You will need a Google account, but Analytics provides data in dynamic graphs, visitor maps as well as pie charts and tables. Very useful for analyzing sources of traffic, or the different search terms that your visitors use.
  • Google Site Search
    Implementing site-wide search functionality requires some web programming. You could go down that long and precarious route, or you could try out Google's Site Search. Using Google's search technology, you can increase both your visitors' satisfaction levels as well as loyalty. Adding search functionality can also drive more traffic by guiding visitors to relevant products.
  • Google Website Optimizer
    Still in beta form, Google's Website Optimizer is currently available inside Google AdWords. You can use it to experiment with different landing pages to maximize your conversion rate. Google also provides testing guides and strategies as well as various online resources and seminars to aid in your optimization efforts.
  • Google Adsense
    If you've got a site, Google's Adsense program could help you monetize it. Offering both CPM and CPC ads, Adsense is the largest ad network at the moment. By targeting ads based on the content of a page, Adsense can drastically improve your CTR (click-through rates). It is widely-used throughout the internet, which could result in ad-blindness (visitors not noticing/clicking on the ads).
  • Google Adwords
    This is the only tool that isn't free. Adwords is Google's platform for third-party advertising. If you have difficulty getting organic traffic in a highly-competitive market, why not pay for it? Within Adwords, you can create new ads, manage your existing ads, as well as monitor the search volume and bid price of prospective keywords.

Keyword Suggestion

Optimizing keywords are essential if you want a ton of organic traffic. Organic traffic usually converts well because people who search for certain things are probably interested in said things. To rank well for a specific search term, you need to have those terms on your website.

That said, it isn't easy thinking about the keywords or search terms that people would use. Often times, the results are highly unpredictable. These tools help solve that problem by suggesting several similar phrases that could bring more traffic.

  • Apogee Keyword Research Tool
    Apogee Web Consulting's Keyword Research Tool will attempt to extract the keywords that your competitors are using. Armed with this information, you can then use a tool like WordTracker or Keyword Discovery to find new niches. The Keyword Research Tool scraps the meta keywords from your competitors' sites.
  • Website Keyword Suggestions
    Chances are, if you've just built a website, you want to optimize the keywords on the page; visitors searching for stuff always use certain phrases in the search engines. This tool from Webconfs.com will determine the theme of your site and using the WordTracker database, deliver similar keyword suggestions and traffic estimates.
  • SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
    Yet another keyword suggestion tool from Aaron Wall. Uses information from Wordtracker to provide similar keywords as well as to estimate monthly search traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN. One useful thing is that this tool links to sites like Google Trends, Google Suggest, Google Synonyms and Yahoo! Suggest. This makes it easy to further assess the level of traffic.
  • Keyword Suggestions for Google
    SEOChat has a great tool that suggests keywords based on Google results. You simply insert a search term, give the tool a few seconds and it will return a list of related keywords. These keywords come from several different Google search, and they will be ranked based on the number of times a given term occurs. May take sometime depending on internet traffic.
  • Google Adwords Keyword Tool
    The Adwords Keyword Tool provides specific and similar keywords. Although it's primarily for use with Google Adwords, you can obviously use it for your own keyword suggestion. The results are available in almost every language that Google supports, although you don't get a clear picture of the search volume. It also displays the advertiser competition levels.
  • Google Suggest
    Although this looks like a plain-old Google search, Google Suggest will return results in real-time. As you're typing your search query, you will get a list of several related terms. These terms can in turn be entered into Google Suggest to yield even more results. Google Suggest is still in beta, so expect the service to be flaky at times.

Live Search Tools

Previously known as Windows Live Search and MSN Search, this is Microsoft's very own search engine. Live Search has recently been revamped, and is now sporting some new innovative features. You can also save your searches and watch them update automatically later.

Because it is a gadget that is available in the Windows Vista Sidebar, usage is expected to rise as Windows Vista becomes widely adopted. Here are a list of tools to monitor and potentially improve your rank on Live Search.

  • MSN Beta Rankings
    Checks your site's ranking on Live Search. Enter the keyword (or multiple keywords) that you want to check, and then key in your URI. You may also choose to specify a country, although there are only a handful of them to choose from. This tool is slightly slower; searching can take up to a minute on popular search terms.
  • MSN Position Search
    This is another tool to check your Live Search rank. Although it doesn't give you the option of selecting a country, you can specify whether to search in the top 100 sites, top 200, all the way to top 500 sites. If you're absolutely sure your site is within the top 100, select that option. It will make your queries much faster.
  • Live Search Webmaster Tools
    The Webmaster Tools is a set of services provided by Microsoft to diagnose the crawling and indexing of your website. You can change settings, submit your sitemaps, validate your robots.txt file as well as check the crawling statistics of your site. Microsoft also provides an entire section dedicated to FAQs for webmasters.
  • Submit to Live Search
    The simplest way to get your website included in Live Search. Although it isn't the fastest way of getting spidered and indexed, it surely is the simplest way. Just type the URI of your homepage, and verify that you're not a spider or spambot by answering the captcha.
  • Live Search Webmaster Blog
    The one source for all things Live Search. The blog is written by Microsoft employees, and contains a wealth of information. The most helpful of the lot are tips on ranking well in Live Search, but they also post updates whenever the Live Search algorithm is modified, so you can continually optimize your sites to rank well.
  • Live Search Webmaster Forums
    A place to chat with other webmasters and SEOs. The forums are hosted by Microsoft and are relatively active. There are several categories with lots of insightful discussion on indexing, crawlers, URIs, SEO as well as feedback on the Live Search tools. Certainly worth checking out.

Misc SEO Tools

This is a collection of tools that don't really fit under any of the other categories. They range from URL re-writing tools to cache and directory checkers. These tools can be used for a whole range of purposes, so it's up to you how you want to use them.

If you know of a great tool or own a great tool, please get in contact with me and I might include it here.

  • URL Rewriting Tool
    Got lots of dynamic URIs in the form "product.php?categoryid=1&productid=10"? This tool will convert these URIs into static looking ones. With the above example, you'll get product-categoryid-1-productid-10.htm or /product/categoryid/1/productid/10/, which will certainly help speed up search engine indexing, as well as please your site visitors.
  • URLTrends
    This tool returns a lot of useful information of a website. Includes PageRank, Alexa Rank, Incoming Links on Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Alexa, Site Title and Site Description. You can use it periodically to monitor the progress of your site; there is a paid option to receive weekly updates.
  • Search Engine Saturation
    The number of pages from your website that a search engine has is also known as the search engine saturation. Unfortunately, not all search engines report this figure, so it's up to you to guess. This tool will show you a rough estimate, with up to 5 comparison URIs, so you can see how well you (and your competitors) are doing.
  • Broken Link Checker
    We all want our websites to stand out from the competition. Since having broken links is looked upon the search engines as slightly spammy, a webmaster should always ensure that his/her links are working and updated. This tool will check whether any of the links on a specified page are broken.
  • Link Value Calculator
    This is useful if you're looking at buying/selling links, although that practice is currently frowned upon by Google. Enter a site's URI, and it returns the price of a link on that site. They even provide buttons that you can embed on your website to show off it's perceived value. The service is slightly slow but incredibly slick and helpful.
  • Website Speed Checker
    Another cool tool from Link Vendor. This will ensure that the servers loading your website are performing normally. The tool calculates the average speed and measures the estimated load times at different connection speeds. If the results aren't very good, perhaps it's time to invest in a better server!

Onsite Optimization

Although attaining inbound links is the biggest factor when it comes to SEO, onsite optimization is also something that should not be overlooked. There are a lot of things like keywords, link structure and duplicate content that have to minimized, maximized or optimized.

These tools help with onsite optimization. They mostly do one simple task, so you will probably be better off with them all.

  • Web Page Analyser
    This simple tool requires your website's URI and a target phrase, preferably the one you intend to rank highly for. It then checks whether the target phrase appears in places like link text, header text, document title, meta description, meta keywords and if it appears in bold text. Really helpful when you need to optimize the onsite text.
  • Meta Tag Generator
    If you have trouble memorizing the HTML needed between the HEAD tag, this tool will certainly come in handy. Type in the page title, a short description of your site and then insert up to 15 keywords separated by commas. The tool will then generate the appropriate HTML code, which you can then cut-and-paste into your HTML document.
  • Meta Tag Generator
    A more advanced meta tag generator. On top of the typical attributes like title, keywords and description, it also allows you to specify the author, classification, geography, language and expiry time and copyright.
  • Spider Utility
    The Spider Utility from SearchWho shows what the typical search engine crawlers see. It returns the body text, as well as a table containing the distinct word, together with a word count and density. In addition, it also shows the different outgoing links on the page. Very useful for general diagnosis of a website.
  • Similar Page Checker
    Duplicate content is a big no-no, it will reduce your rankings in the search engine result pages. The Similar Page Checker can help. It looks through two URIs and compares the difference. The two URIs could come from within your site, or from a competitors' site too.
  • Copyscape
    If the Similar Page Checker mentioned above is not efficient, there's always Copyscape. Copyscape searches the web to find similar copies of your content. All you do is insert the URI of your website, and Copyscape handles the rest. Copyscape also provides a premium service, which removes the monthly limit.

Page Rank

PageRank is Google's proprietary technology that assigns each. Although the minute details aren't available publicly, PageRank works by assigning a number to each page, depending on the number of inbound links. The more inbound links, the higher the pagerank.

Optimizing PageRank is a highly-debated topic in the SEO arena. Because it is only one of an entire list of criteria that the search engines look for, some say it isn't crucial. However, others say that it's important. Here are some tools that can help you out with your PageRank.

  • PR Checker
    The interesting thing about PR Checker is that you can check your PageRank from their site, or by embedding their tool on your site. PR Checker also has a little widget that you can embed on your website, for those interested in showing off their stats. The widgets are available in three different sizes.
  • PageRank Tool
    A plain no-frills PageRank tool. You simply enter your website and hit 'Query'. It queries about 9 different Google datacenters and returns the PageRanks. You can only query one URL at a time, and do not use automated scripts with this tool, or you will be banned permanently.
  • PageRank Search
    PageRank search is a unique search engine. Using Google results, it builds the SERPs (search engine result pages) based on Pagerank. Really useful if you want to know which competitor has the highest Pagerank within your niche. Displays up to 100 results per page.
  • Datacenter Quick Check
    This tool is unique because you can select the IP range of Google datacenters to check (.akadns, .99, 64.*, .104, .105 and .107). It can also show the number of pages indexed by Google, as well as check for Google's backlink/PR update.
  • Future PageRank
    Possibly the best of the lot. This PageRank tool gathers data from 18 different Google datacenters and displays your PageRank all on one screen. A really useful tool, considering that PageRank updates itself once every few months, so it's possible that several Google datacenters may have conflicting information at any given point in time.
  • Google PageRank Prediction
    A nifty PageRank predictor. This tool will estimate your PageRank after the next Google PageRank update. It uses data like backlinks and age to estimate your new PageRank. Note that this is only an estimate; the site goes so far as stating it is the "intention of entertainment purposes only".

Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click is an avenue to draw extra visitors, suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. Instead of having to pay each time someone views your ad, you only pay when someone clicks on it. Hence, its free to simply displaying your ads.

If you've exhausted all forms and means of obtaining organic traffic, your next step would be to buy your traffic. There are many avenues that offer this service. You can advertise on Pay Per Click networks, or Pay Per Click search engines.

  • Google Adwords
    The biggest Pay Per Click search engine out there. As Google's biggest source of revenue, the service offers a lot of flexibility to advertisers, including text and banner ads. AdWords ads are displayed on Google's own search result pages, as well as their partner networks. These include AOL search, Ask.com and Netscape.
  • Yahoo! Search Marketing
    Originally known as Goto.com, and then rebranded as Overture Services, the company was the first to provide a pay-for-placement search service. It was later acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing. With Yahoo! Search Marketing, your rank is directly influenced by factors like bid price, the ad's relevancy as well as its CTR (click-through rate).
  • Microsoft adCenter
    adCenter is Microsoft's solution to delivering Pay Per Click ads together with their search results. Previously, Microsoft displayed Yahoo! ads in their search results. With adCenter, you can target your ads so that they will only be seen by a given demographic, or even on specific times of day or week.
  • Bidvertiser
    Bidvertiser provides advertisers with a categorized directory of websites to advertise on. In addition, eBay sellers can also use it to drive more traffic and increase sales for auction items. For web publishers, you can also join Bidvertiser and make money through your own traffic as well as the referral program.
  • Search123
    Search123 is another PPC network that deserves mentioning. They started out more than 7 years ago, and currently provide traffic from hundreds of search engines, portals, directories and other high-quality content sites. They also provide tools to manage several PPC campaigns across different platforms, which is more suitable for large organizations.
  • AdBrite
    AdBrite not only offers banner and text ads, but also inline ads. These are special links within a website's content that, when clicked, will take the visitor to the advertiser's website. AdBrite comes with an easy to use control panel, as well as advanced options to control how and when your ads will display.

Sitemaps

To make search engine indexing much more convenient for the spiders (and to boost your results and exposure), consider creating both a human-readable sitemap, as well as a search engine sitemap. A search engine sitemap is an XML file that consists of a modified date, priority as well as URL for each page.

While having a sitemap does that guarantee faster indexing times, it does ensure that every page listed in your sitemap will be indexed. The good news is that the three main search engines have decided to use the same standard, reducing the SEO's workload.

  • Sitemaps.org
    The official standard of the search engine sitemap. The protocol page specifies all the details and the format of the sitemap file. It also offers tips on extending the Sitemaps protocol, as well as ways of informing search engine crawlers. Contains an FAQ for additional information.
  • phpSitemapNG
    A Google Sitemaps generator written in PHP. Although it's main purpose is to produce Sitemaps, it is also capable of producing RSS-based, text-based as well as HTML-based Sitemaps. This free tool will not only spider your website, but also your file system if you choose to. Refer to the site for instructions.
  • XML Sitemap
    XML Sitemap is a simple tool that generates a sitemap for your website. You can specify a priority, change frequency, as well as the date it was last modified. XML Sitemap will only index up to 300 pages. If your site is bigger than that, try other tools.
  • Drupal XML Sitemap
    If your website is built on Drupal, this module is definitely something you'll want. It supports Google, Yahoo!, Ask and Moreover, and has been written in such a way that external modules can add extra functionality to support new formats and search engines.
  • Google Sitemap Validator
    Now that you've created your new sitemap, it's time to validate and ensure that all the markup conforms with the Sitemaps standards. This tool allows you to specify the URI of a Sitemap (or Sitemap-Index), and returns specific information as well as the column/row position of the problem.
  • Sitemaps Pal
    Another simple tool to create a sitemap. You can use it for free, although it still has a 2000 link limit on each page. As a premium member however, you can upload the finished sitemap to your server, create xml as well as a txt version of it, create up to 50 sitemaps in your account and monitor your site's PageRank.

Validators

It's important to ensure all your HTML code is valid and conforms to a standard like HTML or XHTML. The biggest reason is because search engine spiders aren't very smart; they follow a specific set of rules, so if your code does not conform, it most probably won't rank very well.

These validators check your HTML code, as well as the little things to keep you on the right track.

  • SEO Validator
    Checks whether or not your websie is "SEO Valid". There are a list of 26 criteria that your site must meet (e.g., HEAD, BODY and TITLE must be declared, normal keyword densities, alt and title attributes must be declared). It also provides a list of suggestions to help you pass this validator. Currently used by over 8300 webmasters.
  • W3C Markup Validation Service
    This is the official markup validator from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It checks for HTML or XHTML, and accepts validation by URI, file upload or direct input. The direct input method is useful when you're prototyping or want to test a specific portion of code.
  • W3C Feed Validation Service
    Similar to the markup validation service, this validator checks whether your RSS or Atom feeds comply with the standards. If you're using a custom written feed, it's important to get it checked because feeds are a method of syndicating content. Some spiders from blog search engines use RSS or Atom feeds to update their indexes.
  • W3C Link Checker
    Having broken links on your site won't go down well with visitors as well as search engine spiders. It's possible that linking to "bad neighborhoods" or having links that are broken could tell the spiders that the current page isn't very well maintained. Hence, the search engine may not rank it highly. Use this validator to test all your outbound links.
  • SiteReportCard
    SiteReportCard provides a detailed report of your website on topics like broken links, load time analysis, meta tag optimization, site popularity, keyword analysis, search engine inclusion and even misspelled words. It also has an image optimization tool that can compress your online (or offline) images to speed up load times.
  • Web 2.0 Validator
    This one's just for laughs. Picking up on the "Web 2.0" theme, this validator will check how "Web 2.0" your site is. Does it refer to Flickr? Does it use Django? Does it link to Slashdot/Digg? You get the idea, it's all that and all the other "Web 2.0" trends. The interesting is that the users get to make the rules as to what defines "Web 2.0".

Yahoo Tools

Yahoo! (with an exclamation mark) is one of the major three search engines on the market today. Founded by graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo at Stanford University, Yahoo! offers not only a search engine, but also a web email service, news and even a web directory.

The Yahoo! Directory is a human-edited web directory. Like DMOZ, getting a link within these two directories is favorable, because of the significant backlinks and high authorities that these two directories possess.

  • Yahoo! Directory
    One of the oldest web directories that is still proliferating on the web. Currently costs $299 if you want your site to be reviewed within 7 business days, although there are no guarantees that it will be included. There is also a $299 annual fee to keep your lisiting in the directory. Expect to pay more for sites with adult content and other questionable material.
  • Yahoo! Search Engine Marketing
    Like Google, Yahoo! also offers it's own service for listing your site in its sponsored search results all across the internet. The costs vary, although you do get in-depth reporting and local targeting. Yahoo! is currently offering a $25 credit for new Sponsored Search advertisers; conditions apply.
  • Yahoo! Search Submission
    There are many ways to submit your site to Yahoo!. The cheapest is the free method; you can submit a site, a mobile site for Yahoo! searches on mobile devices as well as your media content (images, videos, audio via Media RSS). There are also paid inclusion methods, as listed above.
  • Yahoo! Buzz
    If you have a high-profile website, consider signing on with Yahoo! Buzz. Buzz is similar to Digg, where the community gets to vote on popular stories, but Buzz seems to be able to send much more traffic, probably because Yahoo! is a mainstream site that gets a lot more visits and pageviews when compared to Digg.
  • Yahoo! Search Blog
    This isn't much of a tool, but it will certainly keep you up to date on the latest happenings within Yahoo! Search. Contains little tidbits like search tips, stuff for developers, site explorer news and lots more. It also has links to other internal Yahoo! blogs as well.
  • Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
    Similarly, the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog is another tool that regularly lists people and products that matter in online marketing. It also offers a community forum for users to share news, tips as well as strategies. Bookmark or subscribe to this blog to take advantage of the services that Yahoo! has to offer.