Any experience with Rank Tracker?

[Nandakishore]

I read in Google Caffeine Update - is it Good News for You? about the tool Rank Tracker and downloaded the free version. It looks very interesting. Just give your url and the keywords whose ranking you are interested in, choose the search engines, including Google Caffeine, and it will track them for all pages of your site! All in a couple of minutes. So far, I knew only tools which does that only for a specific url and not for the whole site.

If you want to use the tool seriously, you need to spend about $150 (99.75 EURO) because only then you can save your result and repeat the checks using an auto-pilot.

I was going to order the tool, but then I thought it would be better to get some feedback from you guys before spending that lot of money.

[bbonline]

I was going to order the tool, but then I thought it would be better to get some feedback from you guys before spending that lot of money.

That was a great tool. If you have doubt, why don't you try the Free Trial Version and if you think it works for you then purchase the full packaged. For me, i don't usually waste my money from tools with price. I'd rather go for the open source tool available on the net, they are most reliable sometimes compared to the other.

[Muppet]

Tip for young players ... they have this thing called a "live plan" which you have to renew every 12 months otherwise you can't keep scraping the search results if the engines change their results format. They do not make that info clear when signing up and their forum is littered with people who have bought the software unaware that they have to keep paying for updates.
e.g. http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-ta...plan-t829.html

Apart from that I highly recommend it, as long as the price is right for you. I have not found another tool, open source or otherwise, that is as good.

[Nandakishore]

I agree. I have bought it now. Of course they cleverly hide the Live Plan stuff. I came to know about it and its pricing only after I contacted the support. It costs around $75 for one year after the first free six months. I am really satisfied with the tool now and will probably pay also that $75 after 6 months.

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Tip for young players ... they have this thing called a "live plan" which you have to renew every 12 months otherwise you can't keep scraping the search results if the engines change their results format. They do not make that info clear when signing up and their forum is littered with people who have bought the software unaware that they have to keep paying for updates.
e.g. http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-ta...plan-t829.html

Apart from that I highly recommend it, as long as the price is right for you. I have not found another tool, open source or otherwise, that is as good.

Good call Muppet - This is exactly the case

The other three things I will mention is that;

1. Don't leave it open on separate machines as this will initiate an agreement violation and screw you up.

2. Change your human emulation to double the default and don't run it on more than 6-8 sites or 150 - 200 keywords.

3. Use a Yahoo API if monitoring Yahoo

Other than that (and despite the hidden charges) I think its a great tool for ranking check and historical comparisons.

Also - since they added scheduling a few weeks ago its 10x better - you don't need to manually run it every day but the host puter needs to be on (and I was just getting used to having in my morning routine - wake, coffee, s+s, run rank tracker, scratch, shower and check the changes)

WordTracker has one but for my needs v their cost rank tracker proves good info.

We also have a bespoke program we use internally with servers hosted all over the world (14 countries) and have compared results and they are just about the most accurate when compoared to WebCEO, IBP, KPMRS or any other we have tried).

Hope this helps

GaryTheScubaGuy

[casinojack]

It is the best of its kind, and is a must have tool if you a serious player. I love it.

[Muppet]

Great info Gary.

One other tip - not sure if it does this by default or not, but it recommends you use a "100 results per page" mode when fetching search results. Do not use it (instead use successive search). This is because the search results can vary significantly (at least with google) when you go to 100 per page mode, and you really want it to be using the closest thing to a real human searcher, even if it makes the scraping slower.

[Nandakishore]

In the 'Rank Checking Precision' you have also to declare the maximum number of results to check. It is by default 100, can go up to 1000. Does the number of results checked affect the results?

[Muppet]

No, as long as you use successive search mode it just retrieves 10 results at a time like a normal searcher would. I've never used more than 100 results though - there is barely any traffic on most keywords after the 2nd page, let alone the 10th.

[Nandakishore]

I just got an update of Rank Checker with Google Caffeine disabled, I think because Google is starting now to roll out Caffeine. Google Caffeine Set to Go Live! Are You Ready?

[chelon]

I discovered their SEO Powesuite a couple of months ago and I've been using their free versions of Rank Tracker & WebSite Auditor. All three of my sites now have now made it to Google top 10 for at least one keyword term since using this software. I am definitely going to make the investment for the real deal.

[bingotime1984]

I discovered their SEO Powesuite a couple of months ago and I've been using their free versions of Rank Tracker & WebSite Auditor. All three of my sites now have now made it to Google top 10 for at least one keyword term since using this software. I am definitely going to make the investment for the real deal.

Hey, I'll give this a try.. hope this works for my sites.. the current google dance has really screwed up my rankings..

[Nandakishore]

I use the PowerSuite regularly. The Rank Tracker is very useful for finding the most effective keywords for your site in general and individual urls in particular following the history for all top search engines just by running the tool daily. What has really surprised me most is the continuous SERP fluctuation , today #5, tomorrow dropped, then again #4 etc. Now I don't bother much if the rank of a keyword drops suddenly, as long as it comes up again after a while.

Website Auditor is even more useful. You can use it very well to optimize your keywords systematically.

[charlesmanson1980]

Great suggestion guys, i've been using powersuite for a while now, but am now leaning more towards using website auditor.. will still be using both tools though for better stats and comprehensive results