| Cool Tools . . . that are also FREE! |
By Robin Nobles
When working with my workshop or online SEO students, I'm often
told of a really neat tool that I've never heard of before.
So, I thought it would be a great idea to share these tools with
you, just like they were shared with me.
A special thanks goes to all of you who told me about these
unique tools. And, if anyone else has a "cool tool" to share, be
sure to let me know. I'll publish a part 2 of this article!
Customer Focus Calculator ("We We Monitor"!)
http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm This has got to be one of my
favorite cool tools. It analyzes a Web page and lets you know if
the Web page is focused on YOU or on your customers. After all,
shouldn't our Web pages be written for our customers . . . not
ourselves?
Search Engine Optimization Tools http://www.webconfs.com This
site has three different tools that are really cool. One is a
Search Engine Spider Simulator, which displays exactly what a
spider would see when it visits your page. Another free tool is
the Google Backlink Checker, which lets you know who's linking to
your site and what link text they're using. The last tool is the
Similar Page Checker. We all know that "duplicate content" is a
no no. This neat tool will determine the similarity between two
pages.
Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools
http://www.marketleap.com/services/freetools/default.htm My
favorite tool on this page is the Link Popularity Check. Enter
your URL and up to three comparison URLs, and the site will let
you know what your link popularity is in AllTheWeb, AltaVista,
Google, Inktomi, and MSN. It also compares your site's link
popularity to other URLs you listed as well as other sites on the
Net. The Search Engine Saturation tool determines how many pages
a given search engine has in its index for your Web site. You can
compare your site to five other sites with this tool. Finally,
the Keyword Verification Tool checks to see if your page is in
the top three pages of a search engine's results for a certain
keyword or keyword phrase.
Website Security Report http://security.computer-
concierge.net/security/website_security_report.asp This very cool
tool lets you find out how secure your Web site is. When I first
used it, it found more holes in the security of my Web site than
the laws allows, and I promptly changed to a different hosting
company!
Your Computer's Security http://grc.com/default.htm Gibson
Research Corporation offers a really neat (and free) tool for
checking the security of your computer: ShieldsUp. Scroll down on
the page to the Hot Spots area, where you'll find the link to
ShieldsUp. Be sure to go through each of the checks in the
ShieldsUp section (File Sharing, Common Ports, etc.).
Reverse DNS Lookup http://remote.12dt.com/rns/This service
converts an IP address to the host name by searching domain name
service tables.
Doctor HTML http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/Click on Single
Page, and the free service will analyze your Web page based on
document structure, image syntax, table analysis, browser
support, verify hyperlinks, and much more.
GifBot by NetMechanic http://www.netmechanic.com/accelerate.htm
GifBot will compress your GIF, JPEG, and animated GIF images by
decreasing the file size without sacrificing the quality of the
image. So, your pages load faster!
Bobby Online http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
This online service allows you to test Web pages to help expose
and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance
with existing accessibility guidelines. It's very important to
make sure your Web pages are accessible for those who surf the
Internet with disabilities.
AnyBrowser.com Screen Size Tester
http://anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html Have you ever been to a
Web site and not been able to scroll to the bottom of the page?
The scroll bar is there, but you can't get down that far to
scroll. It's not a pleasant experience. At the Screen Size
Tester, you can test your Web pages in different screen
resolutions so that you can be assured that all of your visitors
can view your site in its entirety.
Anti-Spam and Security Fix for FormMail.pl Script
http://mailvalley.com/formmail/"Formmail.pl, one of the most-used
perl scripts on the Web, is designed to send data entered into a
Web form to an e-mail address. This script could be exploited by
a malicious user who could use Formmail as a spam server. If you
use this script, spammers may be able to use it to send spam
freely using your server's resources." This site offers a patched
version that prevents the script from being used by spammers.
Comprehensive Guide to .htaccess
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml Though not a
"tool" per se, this comprehensive tutorial about how to use the
.htaccess file is excellent.
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes for 2002
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20021223.html Though also not a
tool, this handy list is something that we should all be aware
of. For example, don't use horizontal scrolling!
Again, thanks to all of you who shared these wonderfully helpful
tools with me. If I missed any (which I'm sure I did), please let
me know (robin@searchengineworkshops.com). I'll send out a part 2
of this article.
Robin Nobles with Search Engine Workshops teaches SEO strategies
the "stress free" way through hands-on, search engine marketing
workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com) in locations
across the globe and online search engine marketing courses
(http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). Visit the World Resource
Center, a new networking community for search engine marketers.
(http://www.sew-wrc.com)
Copyright 2003 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.
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