I've been asked to do a review of SEO Inc's SEO Toolbar v2.0. The following is a paid review.
I have to start out with some negatives here. First of all, I'm not a big fan of toolbars simply because they take up browser space. But if the functionality is worthwhile, then I'd certainly consider giving up the space for it. So, I downloaded the SEO Toolbar so that I could do a thorough review of it. Here's where things went wrong. Normally, I use FireFox as my browser, but apparently the toolbar doesn't work with FireFox. I say "apparently" because there's no requirements info that I could find. No problem, though, I know that toolbars usually only work with IE, so I just fired up my IE7 browser. I went to View / Toolbars, and sure enough (unlike FireFox), the new SEO Toolbar was in the list of choices. So I clicked on it to put a checkmark next to it. Nothing happened. Hmmm...no toolbar showed up, so I thought maybe I mis-clicked. Went back to View / Toolbars, and tried again. Still nothing. I tried repeatedly and finally had to conclude that the toolbar must also not work with IE7. Oh well...so much for actually testing it.
So, instead, I'll simply list some of the features that the site mentions and let you decide on your own if it's a good product to use or not. It's free, so you might as well give it a shot. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Ok, on to the rest of the "review".
It has a Ranking feature that allows you to get ranking for a domain or keyword in Yahoo, Google and MSN, individually or all at once.
You can search from it, of course. That's pretty standard with a toolbar, although I don't imagine anyone really needs this these days. However, it does allow advanced searches such as language, file format, etc., so that's a positive.
Get some good SEO data about a site such as Google (internal/external) links, Google cache date, Yahoo! (internal/external) links, MSN (internal/external) links, Dmoz, Google Directory, and Yahoo! Directory inclusion.
Also get some nice site data such as URL IP(s), Load Time, Ping, Whois data, and Response Header.
So, all in all, it might be a worthy addition to your browser, based purely on features, but I'll have to leave the "how well it actually works" part of it up to you.
Donna,
Don’t take this the wrong way but I am not into these paid reviews. I think they cheapen your blog. Write about what you want to write about like you normally do and not about what you might get paid for.
Just my 2 cents.
Please don’t take this the wrong way – I like your blog.
Dave
I was able to get it to work under IE7 but after clicking the check mark to enable it, nothing happened for at least 2 minutes, then a message box opened saying that it needed to get config files, click yes or no (while at the same time IE tried to crash, but I hit cancel) after clicking Yes to the config question, the tool bar showed up.
Still a pain for anyone trying to use this. Specialy since so many, including myself, use FireFox
Thanks for letting me know, Dave. If it hadn’t been paid, would that have made any difference? I ask because I have always reviewed tools here, but have only recently gotten paid for a few of the reviews. Is it the review itself you don’t like, or the fact that it is paid for?
And Richard, that’s good to know as well. Sounds like very few people will be able to actually use the toolbar, as is.
Donna,
I enjoy your reviews, and I think you should keep writing them. But I just think it degrades your site when you get paid for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I think you need to get paid for what you do, but I enjoy blogs that are free of that kind of stuff.
I am not saying i will stop reading your blog, but when I see in my RSS reader that you are doing a “paid review” I will tend not to click on your post and won’t read it – I will move on to the other blogs I read.
Hope that helps – just trying to offer some constructive criticism since you have helped me in the past so many times.
Perhaps you could do a poll on your forum to see if I am the only one. There is a great WP plugin that i use on my blog that works really nice.
Dave
Dave, I think you’re reading too much into it. Do you think that movies or shows that feature Apple Notepads, or cans of Pepsi, or a Nike commercial in the background, have less entertainment value because of it? They don’t even mention that their use of product placement is paid for.
She’s not endorsing a product for pay… she’s reviewing it. There is no less information given in the post just because they asked her to do it, and the fact that it was incentivised to choose that as a topic did not sway her to promote anything. She still gave her honest opinion. If you feel her opinion is a worthwhile one, as I do, and enjoy her writings, then the fact that she recieved something for writing on one particular topic or product shouldn’t affect things one way or the other.
Just my 2 cents. And no, no one paid me to say that. 😀
-Michael
I would have to disagree with Dave here. Had Donna not been asked to do a review of SEO Toolbar, I wouldn’t have known about it. The secondary fact is that it was a paid review. And it was an honest review.
But regarding Dave’s concern, perhaps the placement of the statement “this is a paid review” should be at the end of the blog post. I am not sure if it is a requirement of the paid service to introduce the blog post by announcing that the review is paid, but if it isn’t, I would mention it somewhere else.
See, here is where I scratch my head, wondering what to do. If that company had asked me to do a review without pay, I would have. In fact, I’ve done that dozens of times over the years (probably more than dozens, but I don’t know how many times it’s happened). And the review would have been exactly the same. And no one would have had a problem with it. Yet because I got paid for it, and more importantly, I DISCLOSED that I got paid for it, it’s suddenly not a review that someone wants to read. Not sure what to make of it.
Tamar, it’s not a requirement to mention it up front. I could have mentioned at the end of the post. Would that not be tricking drum into reading it, though?
It’s an interesting question, Donna. I don’t think saying it’s a paid review elsewhere is trickery. It should be done out of honesty and ethical concerns.
I think perhaps the issue that Dave is trying to express is that it is introduced as a paid review which in turn can give off a bitter taste in someone’s mouth. The expectation of the blog post changes from its introduction that it’s a paid review.
Donna,
As a regular reader of seo-scoop, as well as much of your other seo stuff on other sites/forums, I felt the need to throw my 2 cents into the ring.
My first reaction to the paid reviews was this: a) I am glad you were up front about it being paid. I thought it made you look MORE credible for being honest. (And when I say up front, I don’t mean the placement of your disclosure…just to be clear.) and b) I thought that if someone was willing to pay you for your review, that says to me, you’ve got the experience to give a complete and thorough analysis of the tool.
So, if I’m interested in the topic/product, I can save myself some time/energy by not having to do the research myself.
And I’d also like to mention, that aside from what little advertising there is on this site, you don’t get paid for sharing your vast experience in seo with the rest of us. Unlike many sites out there, there is no “buy this now” spiel or “join here” to access a great wealth of information. We should all be grateful.
Donna,
I am guessing my 2 cents is in the minority here. You can’t please everyone (I guess that is just me 🙂 ).
Why not take a poll like I suggested earlier?
Ok, I will shut up and listen now…
Knowing a little bit about how “reviews” are often conducted in other industries, I think the way Donna did this and other paid reviews was extremely fair. An editor of a fishing magazine, for example, often gets a free fishing trip anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, just so that he’ll review a given rod or reel. The grease is applied liberally like this in many, many industries.
So when Donna states up front that she’s getting paid, it’s refreshing (though it’s a requirement anyway, right?). And it’s clear from this review that she’s pretty honest, which makes me think about the same of her and her blog as I did in the past. Great stuff.
Dave, I think a poll is a great idea, and I plan to get around to doing it. Just haven’t had time yet (I do have work to do sometimes). Hopefully tomorrow or the next day though…
I’ve been using this toolbar for a few months. It’s great stuff but it’s got nothing on SEO for Firefox.
Hi DazzlinDonna, its quite hard for me to accept that “toolbars usually work with IE only ” b. i do use firefox i even download toolbars for SEO. but, i never come across such problem as you said.
Even i too hav faced same problems while using Seo tools in firefox browser,……. but its working quite good in IE7…the new seo toolbar almost have all tools……thanks for making me to participate in this article……
I am using IE7 in Vista and I think there is some problem with the config file. Still not able to sort it out. Looks like a good toolbar but I hope it works for me.