So about 6-8 months ago, I got an unsolicited email for a new web based tool that could be used to check rankings on Google, Yahoo and Bing. I generally don’t respond well to unsolicited emails, however this one captured my interest, so I decided to take a look. The website is www.kpmrs.com. Basically it’s pretty simple – you enter the keyword, and your URL and it spits out your rankings in Google, Yahoo and Bing. Easy as that. Amazingly, I’ve been using this tool almost daily since the first time I tried it. It’s quick, simple and pretty accurate.

The Catch

The main problem with this tool is it comes with a catch – there is also a paid version. Whenever there’s a free tool that also has a paid version, the benefits of the free version are going to be somewhat limited. The main thing I don’t like about the paid version, is (last time I checked) they charge on a per site, and per keyword basis. This means if you’re like me, and track a large amount of sites, it’s not going to be cost effective.

Also – if you don’t sign up, they limit you to 10 searches per day. Luckily, you can sign up for a free account, like I did, and get unlimited searches as long as you log in first. Not only that, but with a free account you can also automatically track 5 sites with up to 5 keywords each. The cool thing about this feature, is you can opt to be emailed whenever your rankings for tracked keywords change.

Overall, I really love the service, but I do NOT recommend the paid service. Not only that, but a month or two after I received the first unsolicited email and began using the service, I received the same email again. I decided to email the tool designers and let them know I loved the tool, but the fees for the paid version didn’t work for me. They asked me to review their tool on my site, we went back and forth with emails, and ultimately they did offer me a discount on the paid service, but it was still nothing close to what I would be willing to pay. I believe SEO Elite has similar features, so I’m not willing to spend a ton on the service. Anyway, I was really fishing for them to let me try the paid version in exchange for a review on my site, however they never offered it, so that was the end of it.

I wasn’t ever going to review this at all, since they didn’t offer to let me try the paid service, and I certainly can’t recommend it based on the price structure, but I decided to review it after all because I use the free version SO much and quite like it.

Overall, I recommend everyone give the free one a shot if they don’t already have another tool they’re using for this.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ok, just a quick hit today. I’m going to try to start showcasing some of the free stuff I use. A lot of it will be free WordPress plugins, free WordPress themes, and other tools and sites that I really use myself.

Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about a plugin I’ve been using for about 6 months or so now called Link Juice Keeper. Basically this plugin will automatically 301 redirect any non-existant pages on your site to your home page. It’s super simple to set up, and literally starts working once you activate it.

So why is this useful? Well there are actually a couple reasons. Probably the main thing I like it for is using it with expired domains. I generally only try to pick expired domains that have a diverse link profile – at least a handful of real contextual links. Most of the time, in this case, the links pointing back to the expired domain point to a variety of different pages within the site. That means, if you do noting, and put up a brand new site, you will have a ton of nice links pointing to a 404 page… What a waste. Now, many people will use the wayback machine or cached pages in google and recreate the old pages on the site. In some cases this is worth the time, and in other cases, it isn’t. Personally, I’ve found that this works great, and is the fastest way possible to avoid having a ton of links pointing to 404 pages.

Also, another good use for this tool, would be if you were converting an existing site to WordPress. Generally, if you’ve got any kind of non-Wordpress site, it’s going to be hard to keep the exact same URL structure for every page in the site. This is a quick way to avoid a ton of 404′s from search results and keep your traffic level stable as you transition to a new site. Now this probably isn’t as useful for this application, but it would be a lot better than manually setting up 301 redirects for a large amount of pages.

So overall, this is a plugin I use quite a bit. You can add it to your WordPress via the admin if you search for Link Juice Keeper, or click on the link above to visit the plugin page and download it.

Popularity: 7% [?]