Monitor Your Visibility in Google, MSN, and Yahoo with these DIY SEO Tools

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.

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 http://www.freetraffictip.com/thebook/ for more details.

---

Guide to Search Engine Optimization

What is Search Engine Optimization?Search Engine Optimization or SEO for... Read More

3 Deadly Search Engine Marketing Sins

My inbox this week provided glaring examples of three all... Read More

High Search Engine Rankings - A Long Term Strategy

The last 1.5 years have shown major changes in search... Read More

The Google Sandbox Explained

Introduction The Google Sandbox is a metaphorical term... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Free Site Promotion (PR) (part 6/10)

In parts 1 - 5 you learnt how to develop... Read More

Search Engine Metrics: Organic Search vs. Paid Placement

Let me preface this report by citing advertisers in 2004... Read More

Straight Talk on Search Engine Optimization

To get your website listed well in the major search... Read More

How To Find Good Keywords

Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not... Read More

Seek Engines: What If Seek Had Bumped Out Search?

In the early days of the World Wide Web, when... Read More

The Role of the Robots.txt File to Improve Site Ranking!

Not many web master take the time to use a... Read More

Not Ranking High Enough on Search Engines? Here?s Some Help!

Search engines are frugal things. (Froogle, too, haha! Sorry, lame... Read More

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 1: Keyword Selection

This is part one of ten in this search engine... Read More

Link Swapping - How to Win the Website Marketing Game in 3 Easy Steps

If you are a webmaster, chances are one of your... Read More

6 Ways To Attract Search Engines To Your Website More Often

Adding fresh, updated content to your website is the surest... Read More

Google Rankings -- Achieve Top 10 Rankings with Free Tools

In order to get a top 10 google ranking it... Read More

Selecting The Title Of Your Link Exchanges

I want to touch base with selecting the title of... Read More

LSI and Link Popularity

When Paypal's official Web site no longer ranked #1 in... Read More

5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for Your Website

These days with millions of websites out there, you need... Read More

Tops In Toolbars?

Most internet marketers are aware of, and probably use, the... Read More

Should You Be Linking for Traffic or Rankings?

Just for a change, rather than a technical article, I... Read More

The Truth About Search Engines: Playing A Game You Cant Win

If you go strictly by the numbers, Yahoo, MSN and... Read More

Banned By Google And Back Again

The date: 29th July 2005. The time: early morning. I... Read More

10 Minutes to Your Google Sitemap

Google's calling your name...Hi, Google here. We want to index... Read More

SEO #3: Getting Listed In Google in Under 24-Hours!

Yesterday you should have read the second course out of... Read More

Stuck on Keywords

Keywords have turned into big business on the internet. If... Read More

Do-It-Yourself Keyword Optimization

The first step in a search engine optimization campaign is... Read More

Google Love - Five Top Tips To Make Google Love Your Site

1. Google love ...Google and all its programming is not... Read More

Recommended Tools When You Put On The SEO Cap For Your Web Site

The name of the game is search engine optimization and... Read More

Hiring An SEO Constultant - 10 Reasons Why You Should

It crosses every webmaster's mind anytime they see an ad... Read More

Introduction to Google Page Rank (PR)

For anyone looking to enhance their Google Page Rank (PR)... Read More

A Simple White Hat Technique To Get Indexed By Google

Everybody knows that getting indexed in Google is getting more... Read More

Increase Web Site Sales with a SEO Proposal - Part 2

Part I of this article discussed some of the points... Read More

Do the Search Engines Know Your Website?

Are you considering a search engine promotion campaign to improve... Read More