Editor's review
SEO SpyGlass Tool is feature rich user-friendly SEO software for webmasters. It gives you an opportunity to analyze why your competitors have higher search engine rankings and develop an effective SEO strategy that will get you to the top.
Features: One of the factors that makes you rank high on Google search results is the amount of back links you get from other sites and their own Page Ranks. The value of a link back from a higher PR site is higher that back links from a site with lower PR. SEO SpyGlass is an all-in-one back link analyzer designed for effective competitive intelligence. This SEO tool lets you get a close look at your competitors from inside. You are able to learn what strategy your competitors are using. They would have arrived at that by trial and error over years but you could simply find that by looking at some details and then tweak your own strategy. The report will also include the IP number of the domains from which links are coming back and how many links are coming in from each of these domains.
You can also find out the specific keywords your competitor is using in titles and anchor texts. The domain age of each of the link partner as well as the SEO efficiency of every link the competitor is using. The utility will also tell if the competitor is using back links from forums, blogs, and homepages as well as if links are coming in from DMOZ and Yahoo! Directory. Once you have understood why he is ranking well, it`ll be easy to emulate the process. The trick of course is to focus on what works, improve on it and get to the top!
Overall: The data obtained is really good and extensive. But the key of course is the ability to understand the significance of the data and the ability to decide on a strategy.
SEO Spyglass basically does what it says ... but you`re not going to be surprised by great results. Of course, it is just reporting information that is readily available from the search engines. I thought it might be worthwhile to have it gather everything into one place, but I was wrong.
*) It is very basic. You can put in keywords or a URL and have the tool examine it.
*) I found that the results were off-topic. That is, not what relevant for what I wanted. The real disadvantage is that you can`t re-direct/pare down the results. You know how you use advanced search techniques in search engines to find what you really want? You can`t do that with SEO Spyglass ... which means you`re back to the early days of the internet. Searching through a ton of results that you don`t care about.
*) It just spits out a bunch of data. It`s up to you to make sense of it and get results. If you`re a webmaster looking for an automated way to gather a bunch of stats, I guess it would be OK. If you really want a tool to help you improve your search engine ranking, look elsewhere.
*) It is sloooow. I`ve let it run overnight before and it never finished.
In short, the interface is basic, but getting what you want out of it is very difficult. If you want to spend a lot of time getting up to speed and analyzing data, maybe you`ll like this software.
Anyway, they have a free trial that you should definitely try first. I wish I would have ... then I wouldn`t have purchased the full version. There are better services out there.