What SEO tracking software do you use?

[Supercod]

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Hi, was wondering what SEO tracking software people use and what the reports are like and so on.

I just been doing the following, typing in main keywords to Google, MSN and Yahoo and checking them by hand. However wish to track a big bunch of sites now so would like something that done it for me and also kept a record of the positions and how they are changing so I can make notes as to changes and additions done that effected the results.

Any recommendations?

[Brendon]

>> Any recommendations?

Use what you like, but use proxies... I've got a copy of some software that had a window to drag'n'drop a proxy list into, can't find the name of it right now. I'll have a look...

[ian-d]

Wordtracker is good for SERP positioning, tons of keywords refreshed each day if you like with stats on increases/decreases etc. Unfortunetly you need a Google API-KEY which unless you already have, are no longer available.

Tons of tools over at http://tools.seobook.com worth a look. Just don't overkill!

[Supercod]

I am not thinking about hammering it, probably just check it every week for each site so is something that has proxies a must? i.e. what's top stop the competition from setting up a computer to check results with say Google non-stop just to have you dropped.

As said checking I have done to date has been by hand and very boring it is also, so much so I don’t do it enough so if major changes in traffic happen I am not always clear as to why until I dig out my logs.

[ian-d]

To be honest, even after this long time, i still do a number of keyword positioning tasks by hand, i think its the only way of getting truly accurate results for that specific time. You'll find with so many tools that the figures are different, even marginal but can make all the difference. I have hundreds of main keywords, but typically check about 10 of them by hand each time to make sure they are right(ish).

[Supercod]

I am much like you then.. I only check the main sites for about 5 phrases or keywords and that’s it. Thing is I kind a went with the "don’t worry about it, will sort it’s self out in the end" approach as don’t get me wrong I do many right things but I am clear there is many more things I could be doing but to find time for them, I want to free up other tasks but also measure my results so I am not still doing things that have been a waste of time 3 months in ;-)

[Brendon]

>> what's top stop the competition from setting up a computer to check results with say Google non-stop just to have you dropped.

That won't get your SITE banned any more, but SEs have been known to block query requests from IPs that hit them with lots of queries. Makes it tricky to see anything then. That's why I'd use a proxy / proxies if you are going to up your rate of "non-productive" queries

With the variations in data from different DCs, and the amazing speed with which new content can get indexed these days, old skool ranking reports are a lot less relevant than they used to be. I think that log analysis, especially if you can track from entry to "success", is the best data