SEO Powersuite - My story!

[webladder]

Hey all,

So, I just want to share my experiences with some of you regarding SEO Powersuite and get your thoughts on SEO software.

About 3 or 4 months ago, I got caught up in the hype of SEO software and thought it would be the latest and greatest thing to help a small company like myself manage my SEO efforts in a timely fashion. I looked around on the web and basically narrowed it down to SEO Powersuite and IBP. After watching the videos for both and reading reviews, I decided to go with SEO Powersuite, the enterprise edition, since I'd be using it for a my company.

THEN I found Warrior Forums.....

To make a long story short, SEO Powersuite does not perform at the level it's hyped up to be. They do a great job of selling the product, but the proof is in the pudding. It takes hours to run rank checks, even using custom setting for "human emulation" an it often results in TEMP blocks, wasting more of my time.

The tutorials for the software are NOT straight forward...they make it look so simple, and then when delve into it, you find out it's not that easy. And keyword research ? Forget about it. Compare their results with other software and it seems a little skewed to me.

I am now looking for alternatives to SEO Powersuite, including TT (Free) and MS. I have a very bad habit of learning the hard way, but I wanted to share my story.

Has anybody used / is using SEO Powersuite and had any problems ?

[xylement]

I am using SEO Powersuite but mainly for rank tracking and also spying on competitors backlink and manually go there to create one =D so far not causing much problem for me =D

[Matt Gannon]

The only part of the Powersuite I use is SEO Spyglass to find high pr backlinks that competitors use. I would never buy the entire Powersuite.

[webladder]

Originally Posted by xylement

I am using SEO Powersuite but mainly for rank tracking and also spying on competitors backlink and manually go there to create one =D so far not causing much problem for me =D

Originally Posted by Matt Gannon

The only part of the Powersuite I use is SEO Spyglass to find high pr backlinks that competitors use. I would never buy the entire Powersuite.

Are you guys using the paid versions or the free versions? I do like the rank tracker, but if it's only good for keeping track of ranks, what's the use in paying for it ?

[Matt Gannon]

I use the free one only!

[webladder]

Originally Posted by Matt Gannon

I use the free one only!

I am leaning towards building my own suite of tools including including Traffic Travis (Free), MS and SENuke. Anyone care to share their back of tricks ?

[yukon]

I use the free version of seospyglass, IMO it's very slow, still it returns good data.

[MikeFriedman]

A couple of tweaks you may want to try with SEO PowerSuite.

First, you may want to use proxies. That takes care of the problem the OP mentioned about getting blocked by search engines. Every rank tracking or keyword research tool I have used has faced this same problem. Proxies or a VPN rotating your IP address fairly often, problem solved.

Second, tracking rankings can take some time if you are tracking a lot of keywords. But Rank Tracker does have a scheduler. So why not just set it to run at 2:00 in the morning or something like that? Sometime when you are not sitting in front of your computer waiting for it to run.

Mine runs once a week on Sunday nights at 3:00. I also run it manually any time I feel like it.

Speaking of it being "slow", you are crazy if you are going to look at Market Samurai to replace it. Market Samurai is the SLOWEST rank tracker I have ever seen. Not to mention it is also horribly unreliable.

That being said, I don't rely on just SEO PowerSuite. I also use Advanced Web Ranking and CuteRank. I use 3 programs to ensure the accuracy of the results and because occasionally one of them is not working as well. I would look at one of these two options long before relying on MS or Traffic Travis to track rankings.

Yukon mentioned SEO SpyGlass being slow. You can speed it up quite a bit by limiting the information it grabs for backlinks to just the information you want. I often set it to just check if the link is alive, the PR, anchor text, and number of OBL.

SEO SpyGlass is so important to my business. I can't imagine not having it. The amount of links I have found by using this simple tool is remarkable.

[canhdongz]

I use website auditor to SEO On-page

[webladder]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

A couple of tweaks you may want to try with SEO PowerSuite.

First, you may want to use proxies. That takes care of the problem the OP mentioned about getting blocked by search engines. Every rank tracking or keyword research tool I have used has faced this same problem. Proxies or a VPN rotating your IP address fairly often, problem solved.

Second, tracking rankings can take some time if you are tracking a lot of keywords. But Rank Tracker does have a scheduler. So why not just set it to run at 2:00 in the morning or something like that? Sometime when you are not sitting in front of your computer waiting for it to run.

Mine runs once a week on Sunday nights at 3:00. I also run it manually any time I feel like it.

Speaking of it being "slow", you are crazy if you are going to look at Market Samurai to replace it. Market Samurai is the SLOWEST rank tracker I have ever seen. Not to mention it is also horribly unreliable.

That being said, I don't rely on just SEO PowerSuite. I also use Advanced Web Ranking and CuteRank. I use 3 programs to ensure the accuracy of the results and because occasionally one of them is not working as well. I would look at one of these two options long before relying on MS or Traffic Travis to track rankings.

Yukon mentioned SEO SpyGlass being slow. You can speed it up quite a bit by limiting the information it grabs for backlinks to just the information you want. I often set it to just check if the link is alive, the PR, anchor text, and number of OBL.

SEO SpyGlass is so important to my business. I can't imagine not having it. The amount of links I have found by using this simple tool is remarkable.

Thanks for the information Mike. Would you mind if I send you a message on Skype tomorrow ? I'd like to ask you a few questions regarding SEO Powersuite.

[JawadAshraf]

That's why I say manual SEO to my friends and students because it works all the time. I don't say that all the software are not good, you need to check them out and have to find your results. Actually you just need to learn the SEO in-depth then you can achieve high end good results.

[nncjn]

I use SEO Spyglass and Rank Tracker (free). And very helpful at all.

[SEOtraveler]

I guess slow is a relative term here since compared to other tools that mine as much data and have that many bells and whistles, seo powersuite's rank tracker and spyglass are pretty darn fast for desktop seo tools

as for rank tracker - there rare free and paid versions but the scheduler feature that Mike mentioned is not available in the free trial, neither is the ability to safe projects, reports, do historical data tracking and compare rankings with several competitor sites. so if you can live without those features, why not go free. if you need something more substantial, then paid versions may be a good choice

[xzlana]

@webladder
How many keywords do you check? And how many result pages do you select to scan? Desktop software will not scan fast because it tries to save your IP from being banned.

In any case, if you don't like one software, try another, thank god they offer trials.

[Heavenstorm]

i use private proxies for the rank tracker and its doing an excellent job...I think its because your ip was being blocked for running too many queries at 1 go.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by webladder

Thanks for the information Mike. Would you mind if I send you a message on Skype tomorrow ? I'd like to ask you a few questions regarding SEO Powersuite.

I don't mind at all.

[webladder]

Originally Posted by xzlana

@webladder
How many keywords do you check? And how many result pages do you select to scan? Desktop software will not scan fast because it tries to save your IP from being banned.

In any case, if you don't like one software, try another, thank god they offer trials.

Basically, I'm running anywhere from 35 keywords to upwards of 150. I don't obviously check them all at once, I usually do increments of 30 or so. However, I've got the human emulation setup pretty well, and I don't receive that many temp blocks (sometimes none). My problem is with the speed of the reports. i understand that things take time, but sometimes it takes upwards of an hour to run 30 keywords.

However, and like always, just before I'm about to kick a software to the curb, they've introduced new reporting templates for the entire suite. I'll admit, they look pretty f*ing awesome. Maybe it's just me and I should give the software a chance, but other peoples opinions really help me out.

[webladder]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

I don't mind at all.

Thanks Mike. I've added you to Skype so, next the time you're on, you'll see my request. Thanks!

[F1SEO]

We use SEO PowerSuite. Mainly Rank Tracker and SEO Spyglass. I find them very good tools. Like you say, Rank Tracker needs the human emulation otherwise it gets blocked so like someone else mentioned it's run on scheduler during the night .. so it can be slow.

I like Rank Tracker it's a great tool, especially as you can measure against competitors ranks too now.

[webladder]

Originally Posted by F1SEO

We use SEO PowerSuite. Mainly Rank Tracker and SEO Spyglass. I find them very good tools. Like you say, Rank Tracker needs the human emulation otherwise it gets blocked so like someone else mentioned it's run on scheduler during the night .. so it can be slow.

I like Rank Tracker it's a great tool, especially as you can measure against competitors ranks too now.

Thanks for the input! I'll be really delving into the software over the weekend and giving it one more chance to impress me. Maybe it's not the software, but just me being impatient. I'll let you know how it pans out!

How are you guys liking the new report formats ?