Know when you get 'em, know when you lose 'em
I ran across an SEO tool script yesterday that looked useful, so I was going to blog about it and link to it. That's how I usually deal with SEO tools that I test. I just link to them. But this time, thinking some of you might be cheapskates like I am, I bought the resell rights to it, so I could just offer it to you here at half the price. Granted, the script isn't expensive to begin with, but hey, half price is half price, right? 😉
So what is it, you ask? In a nutshell, it's a script that tracks the number of backlinks to your domain, the number of pages indexed, and the number of time your submitted articles were published. Each day, it emails you and lets you know how many new backlinks you've gotten, or how many you've lost (same for pages indexed and articles published). And if you've submitted lots of articles, it can be a nice timesaver knowing this will let you keep track of how often those have been picked up and published.
Click the image to watch a demo video.
It's not a do-all, be-all SEO tool, but it is a nice little addition to your toolset. The best part is that it's dead-simple to install and use. I've installed quite a few scripts on webservers in my time, and am pretty proficient at working through the process. But I'm pretty sure I've never installed one this easily. Basically, you upload the folder, change the permissions of the folder to either 755 or 777 (whichever works for your server), and that's about it. You then go to the url, give it an email address and password that you'll use to login with, and just login.
So, how do you use it? You enter the domain urls of whatever you want to track (yes, with just one installation you can track however many domains that you want), and press a button to make it happen. (For articles, you simply enter a unique article title or author). You can either manually press the button each day, or you can set up a cron job to automatically do it for you. Cron Job? Oh no! Wait, the script tells you how. It gives you the correct path to enter into CPanel, and you copy/paste it in. That's about it.
So, ok, the resell thingamabob included one of those long sales pages that I absolutely hate (and you probably do too), so I'm not going to upload that here. Instead, I'll give the basic facts about it in my own way, right here in this post, so you don't have to wade through a bunch of sales hype and testimonials.
- Tracks # of pages indexed in Google, Yahoo, and MSN (total combined)
- Tracks # of backlinks showing in Google, Yahoo, and MSN (total combined)
- Tracks how many times your articles have been published.
- You can even copy & paste into a spreadsheet to chart your data.
- Lists each day's historical data so you can see the progression.
- Emails the updated stats to you daily.
- Track as many domains as desired from a single installation
Cost: $8.50 (USD)
That's it. Like I said, not the end-all, be-all SEO tool, but a great little addition. And for only $8.50, it's not gonna hurt too much to get it and track all your domains' backlinks, indexed pages, and article publications.
System Requirements: A server that can run PHP scripts.