This is the second part of an article series in which you?ll
find many tools that you can use to monitor your site?s search
engine position and see how your do-it-yourself search engine
optimization efforts are coming along.
The following tools are for monitoring your search results in
the three major search engines. It isn?t an all-inclusive list,
but rather a highlight of some of the tools you can use. (I?ll
point you to one of the master lists when we get into more
general tools in part three.)
Using Your Google Site Information Page
I?ve covered this in an earlier article, but just in case you
missed it, we?ll go over it again briefly here. (If you need
more help following along, you can listen to one of my recent
podcasts for a convenient audio walkthrough.)
Open up your browser and go to Google?s home page. Type in
info:yoursitenameandsuffix. So if your site was ExactSeek.com
you?d type info:exactseek.com. You can also use
site:yoursitenameandsuffix to find out which pages have been
indexed by Google?s search engine spider.
This search will tell you pages that Google considers similar to
yours. It will also show sites that it considered linked to you,
and show sites that carry your full url, hyperlinked or not.
It?s not 100% accurate as far as telling you all the sites that
are linked back to yours, but what you can learn from this is
which backlinks matter.
From here you can also see the last day Google spidered your
home page.
To see this in action, click on the first group of information
links, ?Show Google's cache of yoursitename.com? If you look
next to the word ?cached? one the first line, the date is
expressed also.
Sometimes it seems that the cached time for yoursitename.com and
www.yoursitename.com are different, so be sure and check both.
Finding Information About Your Site In Yahoo
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/tips/tips-08.html
This document will tell you how to find out what sites are
linking to you, give you the results for how many pages of your
site are in Yahoo, and more. Once you get to the results page,
you?ll be able to view your cached pages, etc.
Discovering Your Site?s Status on MSN
http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx
As the page in the help section states, you can use
site:www.yoursitehere.com to find out if a document at your site
has been indexed. The results page will also give you the date
of last caching.
Google Rankings http://www.googlerankings.com
You?ll need a free Google API key for this one, and the site has
the direct link telling you where to get one. You?ll have to
enter this key in order to query the site for information on
Google.
With Google Rankings, you?ll be able to see where you rank
within the top 40-1000 results in Google for a given keyword. I
recently noticed that it also displays results 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 as one they call the ?Ultimate SEO Tool? that
will measure your site?s keyword density.
Google Backlinks Checker
http://lilengine.com/tools/backlinks-tool.php
LilEngine.com?s Backlink Checker will measure the number of
links you have pointing back to your site against competing
sites. Handy if you just want a quick comparison of how many
links you have versus others, though how much getting more links
back will help varies, depending on other factors.
Yahoo Search Rankings http://www.yahoosearchrankings.com/
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 a given keyword. If you just want
to see your Yahoo rankings, it?s quite helpful.
You can find more Yahoo tools that use the Yahoo Web API at
their developer?s site :
http://developer.yahoo.net/wiki/index.cgi?ApplicationList .
In the next part of the article, we?ll take a closer look at
other tools that give you more specific information about the
links pointing back to your site, keyword research, and more.
About the author:
Tinu is a website promotion specialist who can teach you many
do-it-yourself ways to bring more traffic to your site in
addition to DIY SEO. Subscribe to her ezine at Free
Traffic Tips for more details.
|
