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In the next few articles I will look at 3 of the top rank checking software packages available.

But rank checking is a no-no on search engines isn’t it?  This is technically true.

And rank isn’t as important in the end right?  Not so true.

In this article I answer these questions and also look at the first of the three software packages.

So, let’s get those questions out of the way:

Automated queries to search engines is bad

Well, this is true, BUT I don’t know too many SEO’s that don’t check rank.

The fact is, rank is one of the few things that can be shown to provide value for the client.  An increase in rank generally equates to more sales.

Also, when sites aren’t ranking in the top 10,20 or 30 a rank checking tool can help monitor improvements in the lower ranks until they break into the top 30.

The key is to make it appear as if you AREN’T using a rank checking tool.  The best way to do that is to extend the time between queries and not run your rank checking software too often.

What I recommend is run your rank checker software monthly on your core keywords, perhaps every 2 to 6 months on your extended keyword basket and have a few (5-10) really important ones you check manually every week.

But rank isn’t important!

If you’re SEO ever told you that you should fire them – plain and simple.  After all, you hired an SEO to improve your search engine positioning.  If all you wanted to do was improve your customers onsite experience you could have bought an analytics and a/b testing software to optimize your site that way.

But true SEM involves both optimizing the onsite experience as well as the search engine rankings.  If you aren’t getting both from your SEM (along with a host of other things) then you may not be receiving value for your money.

You see, an SEM should cover all aspects of online promotion – from helping you place PPC ads, to balancing your spend to optimizing your site to offering press release tips and more.  SEM is more than just PPC and more than just SEO – it is both these and a whole lot more.

Think about it – how well will your SEM campaign work if the company you hired hasn’t asked you about your target customer?  Can they really devise an SEM campaign without that crucial bit of information?  How would they even go about picking keywords to optimize or bid for?

So while SEM isn’t just rankings, a good part usually is.

And that’s why you need a rank checking software.

Don’t get me wrong, not everyone uses one of the packages I’m going to talk about.  In fact most large SEM firms have in-house resources to do just such a thing.

Some have very complex rank checking tools running behind multiple proxies so they won’t be detected.

But for most site owners you need something else.  So that’s what I’m going to bring to you.

I will provide my recommendations at the end of the third article, but for now let me introduce them to you along with what they can or can’t do.

Package 1 – Webposition Gold

A little history about Webposition first.

This is probably the oldest and most well known rank checking software.  I know when I started in the biz it was “the” tool.  We used it extensively until a few years ago.  Not too long ago it was bought by another well known company – WebTrends – and they do work together, kinda.

It has many great features and some not so great ones, so let me start with the not so great ones.

The “Page Builder” has got to be one of the worst parts of this program.  It’s a doorway generator and while this may have been mandatory 5 years ago, doorways’ll get you banned nowadays.  So if you are considering using this application, I’d recommend hiring a college English student to write for you – you’ll get much better quality quicker and there will be less chance of your site getting penalized or banned.

The “Page Critic” is a somewhat useful tool within the application but again, I wouldn’t buy it for this.  While it does provide some useful information there is also much that is dated.  I especially like how it talks about how “While most engines do index Active Server Pages (usually ending in .ASP), only Direct Hit, Lycos, HotBot, Google, and Alta Vista are known to handle the special characters (? or &) usually tacked on the end of an ASP page.”

I mean, does anyone really care what Direct Hit (does that even exist anymore?), Lycos and some of those others do with ASP pages?

Another more or less useless part of this program is the page submitter.  Again, if you need an automated software to submit pages (which by the way will also likely get you banned – remember automated software of any kind isn’t looked on very favorably) then you have problems.

All you really need to do is make sure your in Google, Yahoo! And MSN and your OK and if you’re having problems getting found here then I’d start looking at your site to see what’s wrong.  Because in my experience if you’re not indexed here then there’s a problem with the site.

There’s other sections as well, such as integration with WebTrends, but I’ll leave those to you to explore if you decide to get this package.

Instead I’ll focus on what this article is really about – the reporting tool.  This is the most powerful (and best) part of this application.  It can help you automate the rank checking of your keywords across hundreds of engines.

Why would you care about the rank on hundreds of engines?

Well chances are you don’t unless you run a multinational website.

For example, I have a client who is a well known travel site who needs to know how to rank outside of the US as most of their current clients are from outside the US.  Therefore it’s critical to them.

How the reporting works

It’s really quite simple – you set up a new “mission” where you input the domain and keywords you want to check and set other options such as the engine(s) to query, the number of results to check (i.e. Do you want to report on top 30 or top 50?) if you want to export the data and so on.  Then run your report.

The other handy thing is that you can set up scheduled reports which is really handy – you can set them to run at night when you computer isn’t busy and then export to an Excel sheet or email for further review.

One other thing – and one of the most important parts of this section is the “time out” in the options tab.  Be sure to be generous here especially if you are running the reports over night.  It’s going to be more beneficial to you and the engines if you give a really generous delay between requests.

So there you have it – WebPosition Gold in a nutshell, now for the sticker shock.

This is the most expensive of the 3 packages I checked on – at almost $400 for the pro version this can get expensive – especially if you need to report on more than 5 domains.

If, however, you only need to track a single site then you can probably get away with the “Standard Edition” for about $150.

For more information on WebPosition Gold, check out their website:

http://webposition.com/

To compare the different versions (Pro and Standard) follow this link:

http://www.webposition.com/product/compareeditions.asp

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com