What do you use to track your client's organic search rankings?
I've used Web CEO before and I liked it because I could type in keywords and it would come back with a report telling me where my client's Web site ranked in each of the search engines I selected. I know there are some inexpensive or free tools out there.
Answers (10)
Stephen L.
Website Management, Usability, Social Media Marketing, SEO, PPC, Email Marketing and Mobile Marketing Expert
Best Answers in: Search Marketing (2), Internet Marketing (1)
I use Web CEO as well. I have also used some of the SEOMoz tools that they have build as extensions to Firefox.
All-in-all, I have tried out some programs less expensive than WebCEO but nothing came close to being as good.
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Tom G.
Project Management and Business Analysis Professional
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I use Advanced Web Ranking Enterprise by Caphyon. AWR provides a robust feature set in terms of analyzing collected data. It also allows the user to export custom data files in csv or xml formats, which is useful when you want to bring the raw data into another application for further analysis.
In terms of the analysis features internal to AWR, it is setup to allow customizable reports which can be pushed out in a variety of formats. You can setup jobs that email the reports on a regular basis or upload them to a server for review by a group. There are also multiple screens within the application for you to review rank progression, overall visibility of the domain being analyzed, etc...
Aside from analysis, it is cross-platform (built on java) and can support the Google SOAP API if you're lucky enough to have a key. You can still apply for a Yahoo application developer key, but my experience is they deactivate it if they don't see a true application being powered by it. AWR gives you a wide array of options when it comes to timing the queries so you don't get temporarily blocked by G/Y/MSN. It also has integrated Google's suggested keywords feature - so you can do some keyword research "on the spot" when you're setting up your project.
Pricing is as follows:
AWR Standard: $99
AWR Professional: $199
AWR Enterprise: $399
AWR Server: $599
You may download a trial copy of any version and use it free of charge for 30 days. Good luck!
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Wallace J.
Multimedia Producer, i3D Programmer, Acrobat 3D PDF, Android App, Virtual World & iTV Design, Kindle, Nook & Sony eBooks
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AWR. Walls. MindTaffyLLC@Yahoo.com
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Here is the free tool I use:
http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/ranking-reports
I also use Websitegrader. It's slightly different tool, but also helps a lot.
http://www.websitegrader.com. It's also free.
IVSyd.
Links:
I have used a bunch of different tools to track rankings, each with pros and cons.
If you are talking enterprise level go with WebCEO, it has all the tools need to track keywords for multiple clients. The one downside is no trend feature.
Another alternative to WebCEO is WebPostion Gold. This has a nice trend report, but I have found that the tracking and scheduling is inconsistent. Additioanlly, it gets blocked by Google more quickly than WebCEO
One nice free tool is Rank Checker. It is a FireFox plugin. It provides a nice quick check of all the keywords for a client. The only features are saving a list and using it again at a later date.
Don't forget to you SEODigger. It provides a nice set of exportable results for you to do with as you wish. Just remember, it doesn't save your report for more than a week
Hope this helps
Chris C.
Senior Engineering Manager
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Primarily WebCEO because of the ability to look at rankings over time and trends. Otherwise I've found the seomoz tools to be a very good investment as well as seodigger.com.
Jamil C.
Search Engine Marketing Specialist
Best Answers in: Search Marketing (1), Web Development (1)
I have used RankStat in the past at another company to monitor search engine rankings, but I found that its interface was too limited to track all of their pages, domains, and subdomains.
I ended up simply screening the search engine results pages by myself and documenting the results in an Excel spreadsheet. I used WebCEO at my current company as they had previously subscribed to their service; however, since they were not currently subscribed, the application no longer worked as of late July. I imagine that if you renew your subscription for a month that you may be able to get additional mileage out of it.
I personally use a proprietary solution developed by my own programmers that not only collects the current rankings of a site but also compares them to the previous results and shows whether the rankings are improving or dropping - but since this is not made available to the public I obviously cannot recommend it :-)
What I do recommend tho is Aaron Wall's Rank Checker Firefox plugin already mentioned here - it is free and fully customizable and you can enter any keywords you'd like to check and the results can be exported as csv. However, keep in mind that if you are located somewhere other than your client/his target market, your results will differ as Google and other search engines use geotargeting heavily in their results - this can be fixed of course by using a corresponding proxy.
In case you start working with a new client site and just want to quickly find out whether it ranks for anything yet, Spyfu is a great option for this. The free version will only give you a limited set of data and the yearly subscription cost is not that low but it now provides the data for both US and UK markets. It is better than SEODigger mentioned here as SEODigger only shows rankings based on the keyword combinations found onsite.
Another free option I can think of is the old DigitalPoint rank checker tool (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/) but since I haven't used it for a while I am not even sure it still functions. In it, you enter the keywords that interest you and run it as often as you need and it collects the data historically and lets you compare it.
I work for an Internet marketing company that manages more than 80 clients and I recommend Rank Tracker from http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/index.html. When I started at this company, we were using WebPosition Gold, then we switched to WebCEO but the results are not consistent and they are sporadic.
SEODigger is a good tool for a separate purpose.
Based on the answers I saw here, I'm going to check out AWR.
www.kandiandkeith.com
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Traci Hayner V.
Marketing and branding consultant, publicity strategist, radio show host, social media wonk, publisher and nerdy girl.
Best Answers in: Guerrilla Marketing (1)
Hello, Jay:
Lots of great suggestions here already. One that I didn't see listed that is worth considering is Trackur - http://www.trackur.com/205.html.
Trackur is a product from Andy Beal (of Stompernet fame). It is a complete buzz and reputation management tool, and will search millions of pages, including blogs, videos, images, forums, etc., and return results based upon keywords you designate. They offer solutions for individuals, as well as agency solutions. And, a two-week trial is available.
Hope that this will be helpful to you.
Best,
Traci Hayner Vanover
