Traffic Travis

[Kiril S]

Hi, I just recently found two nice keywords, both of them had low competition according to Traffic Travis (top 10 had around 1-100 backlinks). Thinking I had good keyword with poor competition, I created two websites, created backlinks, etc. Now I just checked Yahoo's Site Explorer, and some of the top 10 actually have in the thousands backlinks. What a buzz kill....

Lesson learned.

[thomarv29]

sorry for your luck... havent heard of traffic travis but i will not be using it anytime soon lol Thanks for the tip

[Brad Seid]

Thats rough.. I use Traffic Travis, Market Samaurai, SEO Books Rank Tracker and SEO4Firefox plugins to double check everything.. The more the merrier

[Kiril S]

Originally Posted by Brad Seid

Thats rough.. I use Traffic Travis, Market Samaurai, SEO Books Rank Tracker and SEO4Firefox plugins to double check everything.. The more the merrier

Yes indeed, double checking is a must! I now adapted a new strategy to analyze the competition:

Traffic Travis > Google Search Top 10 with SEO for Firefox plugin > Yahoo Site Explorer > Backlinkwatch.com

I got everything under control now.

[Brad Seid]

Originally Posted by Kiril S

Yes indeed, double checking is a must! I now adapted a new strategy to analyze the competition:

Traffic Travis > Google Search Top 10 with SEO for Firefox plugin > Yahoo Site Explorer > Backlinkwatch.com

I got everything under control now.

Nice! i used to use Backlinkwatch but it was too shaky for me..

[Elsoft]

Lessons to be learnt.Its nice of you sharing it.I was actually recommended to use traffic travis by someone a few days back.I have downloaded it but yet to use it.Now,I dont think it doesnt deserve the bits on my harddisk.I think this is the second/third negative feedback I read in the last two days.

[timpears]

Originally Posted by Elsoft

Lessons to be learnt.Its nice of you sharing it.I was actually recommended to use traffic travis by someone a few days back.I have downloaded it but yet to use it.Now,I dont think it doesnt deserve the bits on my harddisk.I think this is the second/third negative feedback I read in the last two days.

None of the tools are perfect, including Google's. I have had pretty good luck with Traffic Travis for the last couple of years, and I am going to continue to use it.

[imdomination]

I like Market Samurai because it automatically lets you check how many backlinks there are with both YSE and Magestic SEO.

[markling]

@Kiril

You say "Traffic Travis Screwed Me Over" that's a very harsh statement, especially considering the time and effort our whole team puts into our software on a daily ongoing basis.

Firstly, the 'competition' rating comes straight from Google themselves, it is the competition for Google Adwords space on those keywords. The reason we have it in the SEO tool is many people believe that keywords that are highly competitive in Google Adwords must be more likely to be 'buyer keywords'

If by 'competition' you meant the 'SEO Difficulty' tab, then your reason for saying that you think Traffic Travis is incorrect in its assessment of 2 keywords was that "some of the top 10 actually have in the thousands backlinks" isn't enough reason to say that Traffic Travis would be wrong. Sometimes you get lots of sites ranking with 'thousands of rankings' yet none of them are actually pinpoint relevant to the keywords being targetted, hence google just puts up the closest 'authority site' listing they can find. Yet they can be easy to outrank with good on page optimization, and good link building strategy including theme-relevant links with correct anchor text' There are numerous examples of websites ranking in top 10 for various keywords outranking sites with 1000s of backlinks.

Thirdly, Traffic Travis is not always going to be correct when it analyzes the 'difficulty' of ranking for thousands keyword phrases as it is not google and doesn't know google's precise algorithms, but from my experience, it provides very good estimates of seo difficulty for most keywords and we continue to update and improve our own algorithm for assessing these seo difficulty ratings.

Kind regards,
Mark Ling

[Adsman68]

Mark,

Are your team aware that the free version of TT is not registering any backlinks when you look at the keyword SEO Analysis etc ? Can your team have a look at this ?

Cheers

[ryanjm]

^I thought that's what he meant too. It just isn't finding backlinks. Altthough, I'm not sure how he didn't notice that every site registered "0" links...

[Kiril S]

Originally Posted by markling

@Kiril

You say "Traffic Travis Screwed Me Over" that's a very harsh statement, especially considering the time and effort our whole team puts into our software on a daily ongoing basis.

Firstly, the 'competition' rating comes straight from Google themselves, it is the competition for Google Adwords space on those keywords. The reason we have it in the SEO tool is many people believe that keywords that are highly competitive in Google Adwords must be more likely to be 'buyer keywords'

If by 'competition' you meant the 'SEO Difficulty' tab, then your reason for saying that you think Traffic Travis is incorrect in its assessment of 2 keywords was that "some of the top 10 actually have in the thousands backlinks" isn't enough reason to say that Traffic Travis would be wrong. Sometimes you get lots of sites ranking with 'thousands of rankings' yet none of them are actually pinpoint relevant to the keywords being targetted, hence google just puts up the closest 'authority site' listing they can find. Yet they can be easy to outrank with good on page optimization, and good link building strategy including theme-relevant links with correct anchor text' There are numerous examples of websites ranking in top 10 for various keywords outranking sites with 1000s of backlinks.

Thirdly, Traffic Travis is not always going to be correct when it analyzes the 'difficulty' of ranking for thousands keyword phrases as it is not google and doesn't know google's precise algorithms, but from my experience, it provides very good estimates of seo difficulty for most keywords and we continue to update and improve our own algorithm for assessing these seo difficulty ratings.

Kind regards,
Mark Ling

Hi, I know it was a harsh statement but I lost a lot of my investments and time. Regarding the 0 backlinks, I'm fully aware of this situation. When I did my keyword research, it still worked. Now I'm not trying to ruin your software's reputation, I just wanted to warn people about double checking their data. As you can see, traffic travis still has a part in my keyword analysis.

The problem I encountered with Traffic Travis was that it didn't correctly show the number of backlinks each page had (according to yahoo's site explorer and backlinkwatch.) There was a pretty big difference if you ask me.

Thanks

[astrominds]

MarkLing,

Any chance on an update to rectify the "no showing of back-links in the BL & BLS columns"

Best Regards.
Astro

[VladWorks]

I personally love Traffic Travis...Its not perfect by any means but its my favorite of those type of tools.

Its not Traffic Travis fault you didn't double check before starting all your work...They didn't waste your investment...

Its your own fault.

In this business you need to double and triple check from all sources. Compile all the info and look for patterns. That is the only way.

[Yogini]

One thing that I find to be helpful is to check page 1 in google for the phrases I want and see if there are any results that are pr0 or pr1 listed. Of course, number of backlinks, exact domain match, age of domain and on site seo are all important. I haven't used traffic travis but have found discrepencies in checking backlinks with other tools.

Debbie

[Justin W]

Traffic Travis is a really good piece of software. However, you should never just rely on one program for information. Like you learned... always double check things.

[Delarox]

I think you should have double checked with other tools and the GKT before you commited your time and effort. This is a basic mistake but a valuable one

[LibbyC]

Originally Posted by markling

@Kiril

You say "Traffic Travis Screwed Me Over" that's a very harsh statement, especially considering the time and effort our whole team puts into our software on a daily ongoing basis.

Firstly, the 'competition' rating comes straight from Google themselves, it is the competition for Google Adwords space on those keywords. The reason we have it in the SEO tool is many people believe that keywords that are highly competitive in Google Adwords must be more likely to be 'buyer keywords'

If by 'competition' you meant the 'SEO Difficulty' tab, then your reason for saying that you think Traffic Travis is incorrect in its assessment of 2 keywords was that "some of the top 10 actually have in the thousands backlinks" isn't enough reason to say that Traffic Travis would be wrong. Sometimes you get lots of sites ranking with 'thousands of rankings' yet none of them are actually pinpoint relevant to the keywords being targetted, hence google just puts up the closest 'authority site' listing they can find. Yet they can be easy to outrank with good on page optimization, and good link building strategy including theme-relevant links with correct anchor text' There are numerous examples of websites ranking in top 10 for various keywords outranking sites with 1000s of backlinks.

Thirdly, Traffic Travis is not always going to be correct when it analyzes the 'difficulty' of ranking for thousands keyword phrases as it is not google and doesn't know google's precise algorithms, but from my experience, it provides very good estimates of seo difficulty for most keywords and we continue to update and improve our own algorithm for assessing these seo difficulty ratings.

Kind regards,
Mark Ling

Well said Mark, very restrained

I LOVE traffic Travis - I use it pretty much everyday to check my SEPRs, analyze specific keywords etc.

But it's not the only KW tool I use. Like many people here I also combine it with Google KW tool, Market Samurai and SEOQuake.

Keyword research is an art, not a science so I make like Santa and check it twice before I waste time and effort on a KW that isn't as strong as it initially looks.

The guys at Traffic Travis/Affilorama give out so much value (and tools such as the great Affilorama Toolbar) for free that to say they 'screwed you over' is just plain rude in my books. What would they have to gain by giving you false information?

I think Mark's incredibly professional reply shows exactly how he chooses to run his business!

Cheers
Libby

[Spyder77]

Originally Posted by Kiril S

Yes indeed, double checking is a must! I now adapted a new strategy to analyze the competition:

Traffic Travis > Google Search Top 10 with SEO for Firefox plugin > Yahoo Site Explorer > Backlinkwatch.com

I got everything under control now.

To avoid getting personalized/regional SERPs when doing the G top 10 search verification, check incognito, or better still, use Scroogle.

-Spider

[attorneydavid]

opensiteexplorer.org by seomoz is the best for checking competitions in my view. Traffic travis is best for checking positions.

[lvraa]

@Mark and others...

I have been using Traffic Travis for a long time - thanks for creating such a great SEO tool!

I first used the free TT3 and then the paid TT4 and they have helped me a lot in getting better rankings (in particular TT3). Even when I had TT4 I used TT3 until recently to do quick keyword research on a single keyword and I loved it for its simplicity and power.

However a few days ago TT3 stopped working and returned no back link data. Then yesterday TT4 also stopped working on Research Tab (could not get the data under SEO Difficulty) and SEO Tab does not update....

I have contacted support but still wait for a response!

Anyone else experience the same issues? Is this a general problem or something I'm the only one affected by?

[barligea]

I use traffic travis and usually is right on. Better double check indeed. Thanks for the heads up.

[Adsman68]

Same, no backlink data on TT3.

Originally Posted by lvraa

@Mark and others...

I have been using Traffic Travis for a long time - thanks for creating such a great SEO tool!

I first used the free TT3 and then the paid TT4 and they have helped me a lot in getting better rankings (in particular TT3). Even when I had TT4 I used TT3 until recently to do quick keyword research on a single keyword and I loved it for its simplicity and power.

However a few days ago TT3 stopped working and returned no back link data. Then yesterday TT4 also stopped working on Research Tab (could not get the data under SEO Difficulty) and SEO Tab does not update....

I have contacted support but still wait for a response!

Anyone else experience the same issues? Is this a general problem or something I'm the only one affected by?

[ThorstenD]

Thanks for some interesting views on Traffic Travis. I checked out the free version. My guess is that it's keyword tool does only work well with English language. Has anyone tested it with other languages?

[Adsman68]

Still getting no backlink data on TT3 ?? Mark, can your guys have a look at this please ?

[chrisen]

I noticed that yesterday about the no backlinks. I always double check the backlinks to the competition using a number of different tools anyway. They all usually give different results so I try to use a little common sense when determining competition.

[thebarksmeow]

Wow... still no backlink results?

[benkleiner]

Still getting no backlink data on TT3 of any kind (zeros everywhere)!
What is going on?

Thank you

[prosperhouse]

If you are having Tech issues with TT
traffictravis.com/help

[NickDoubledotMedia]

Good morning everyone,

My name is Nick and I'm one of the developers of Traffic Travis. We are aware of the issue with the backlink counts not working - especially with the BL and BLS which is in the seo difficulty.

We are looking at having a new release for both v3 and v4 of TT by the end of the week to address these issues.

If you have emailed in to the support team, then you will get an email once this new version has been released. I will also update this thread.

Thanks for your patience

[Adsman68]

Thanks for the update. Looking forward to this being resolved.

Originally Posted by NickDoubledotMedia

Good morning everyone,

My name is Nick and I'm one of the developers of Traffic Travis. We are aware of the issue with the backlink counts not working - especially with the BL and BLS which is in the seo difficulty.

We are looking at having a new release for both v3 and v4 of TT by the end of the week to address these issues.

If you have emailed in to the support team, then you will get an email once this new version has been released. I will also update this thread.

Thanks for your patience

[liita]

I find Yahoo Site Explorer a bit slow with updates (and therefore less accurate in reflecting the actual backlinking situation).

When you double check :
1) Do all the webpages showing up in Yahoo Site Explorer still exist?
2) If a webpage still exists, is the actual backlink (to your competitors webpage) still on that webpage ?
3) Are many backlinks, to your competitors webpages, originating from the same webpage ?
(10 backlinks from the same webpage still count as 1 backlink)
4) There could be even more reasons.

I have used TT alongside MNF for quite a bit, until MS came along.
(TT Pro was a freebie with Mark Ling's AffiloBluePrint 2.0 in april 2009.)

MS is now my main research tool, with TT and MNF always there for a second and third opinion.
What I like about MNF is that it attempts to "measure" your competitions strength, and then gives hints of your chances of going for it with traffic light colors.
In comparison, set one of your filters just a wee bit too tight in MS and you might miss the orange, or even green niches.
For example, in MS, the default value for SEOT Traffic is 50 clicks/day. Set it to 49 clicks, and you might have up to 5+ keywords more.
So by "lowering" your demands/expectations, by just one click, you could have 5 more sites setup.
5 x 49 potential clicks, sounds a lot better to me than 1 x 50 potential clicks.
(Same story with SEOV Value. Default is a potential of $50/day I think. Again "lower" your demands/expectations to just $49 and sometimes be amazed at how many less keywords get filtered out.)


SEOT Traffic = The maximum potential daily clicks that a #1 ranked site for this keyword term could potentially achieve.
SEOV Value = The total daily value of traffic that a website ranked #1 in Google for a keyword could potentially achieve ( SEOV = SEOT x Adwords CPC ).

[NickDoubledotMedia]

We have released an update to fix this issue.

Any futher issues please contact the support team - you can send them an email by using the contact form on the FAQ page of the TT website.

Thanks.

[Gail J Richardson]

Thanks for all this discussion. I have just recently started using Traffic Travis but I will be sure to double check all results.
Gail

[outwest]

I just downloaded the free traffic travis (v 3) the backlinks feature does not work

does this only work in the paid version? I thought you guys said you fixed this? or is the version I downloaded, not the correct one? I downloaded version 3.3.16

or does backlinks not work now because yahoo site explorer is closing?

[Roberto L]

Traffic Travis is very advanced, I started to use it last week and found it with many functions, still need time to check it out...it even shows the SEO result in different countries, so I think it is a good software for experienced SEOers, especially for those analysts.

[emory27]

traffic travis is a ncie tool and the reality is all of the keyword niche progams out there get their data from the same sources, backlinks primarily come from yahoo, or majestic seo etc.. before i buy a domain i always take a quick look at the top ten using seoquake and verify that the top 3 dont have my keyw9ord in their title, high PR, backlinks etc.. once i verify this i move on to purchasing. google itself commonly gives false data directly through the adwords tool, cant expect tools that use this data to not have the same issues.

[Hein George]

No doubt traffic travis getting its name day by day, may there also cause of effective marketing. I have its free version and use some times, but for keword search analysis one must try at very first point only Goolge adwords. Then move to other sources because this is all about research and you get more if you have good resources for your search.

[kenwarrior]

Originally Posted by NickDoubledotMedia

Good morning everyone,

My name is Nick and I'm one of the developers of Traffic Travis. We are aware of the issue with the backlink counts not working - especially with the BL and BLS which is in the seo difficulty.

We are looking at having a new release for both v3 and v4 of TT by the end of the week to address these issues.

If you have emailed in to the support team, then you will get an email once this new version has been released. I will also update this thread.

Thanks for your patience

Traffic Travis v4 is a piece of junk, I bought it back in May, today even simple keyword research is not working, you should be ashamed to be associated with this piece of rubbish software, I've virtually given up trying to use it but foolishly decided to give it another try... still broken!!

What say you?

[dagaul101]

Yeah it's always a little sad to find out the keywords you thought had little competition, the top 10 are working their socks off to remain there, it gives a little bit of reflection as to why 90% of IM fail, because only less than the 10% can actually occupy those top 10 positions

[lovboa]

+1 to traffic travis being a very valuable tool for no cost for free version.

[silverbean]

I did the exact same thing using Traffic Travis. I wasted time and money building a site and registering domains based on TT results. I will never use it again, very disappointed with TT. I recommend to stay far away from it.

[StoneWilson]

Use more tools and compare their results comprehensively is a better choice.

[kenwarrior]

Am I correct in thinking that in the latest version 0.3764 some of the data fields, such as "difficulty" in the keyword research function have been removed?

[theverysmartguy]

Originally Posted by agendapal

Dont use traffic travis.. Its a fake program.

Its a fake program? Really? Then how I am using it everyday as part of my research?

-- Jeff

[UMS]

Originally Posted by agendapal

Dont use traffic travis.. Its a fake program.

That is absolute rubbish and quite slanderous towards Affilorama and Mark Ling.

You can't go making false accusations like that without backing up your claims with hard evidence.

Traffic Travis is very real and has a huge user base worldwide.

Note that I am not affiliated with Traffic Travis in any way, and I've certainly had my fair share of gripes with it (mostly version 4), but to call it fake does your credibility a lot of harm.