Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives?

jasonjohnson · 02-18-2011, 06:40 PM

I assume I am not the only one to be massively frustrated with market samurai after reading around.

Anyone know any good alternatives to this tool? My favorite feature was how I could see search data, seoc and seotc etc very easily.

Also I loved the seo competition research module where I could see the top 10 sites and all the info then drill down to see their backlinks and anchor txt.

Anyone know a tool that offers those features?

dp40oz · 02-18-2011, 06:51 PM

What exactly is frustrating you? Mine is working great.

Sam Thompson · 02-18-2011, 06:55 PM

Mine works great also. I wouldn't use anything else What seems to be your problem with it?

AllanJames · 02-18-2011, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasonjohnson

I assume I am not the only one to be massively frustrated with market samurai after reading around.

Anyone know any good alternatives to this tool? My favorite feature was how I could see search data, seoc and seotc etc very easily.

Also I loved the seo competition research module where I could see the top 10 sites and all the info then drill down to see their backlinks and anchor txt.

Anyone know a tool that offers those features?

Have you looked at Traffic Travis? They have a pretty capable free version that will let you see the capabilities.

salegurus · 02-18-2011, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasonjohnson

I assume I am not the only one to be massively frustrated with market samurai after reading around.

Anyone know any good alternatives to this tool? My favorite feature was how I could see search data, seoc and seotc etc very easily.

Also I loved the seo competition research module where I could see the top 10 sites and all the info then drill down to see their backlinks and anchor txt.

Anyone know a tool that offers those features?

I have also had problems with MS:
Inacurate results
Slow to fill fields
No longer reporting BLEG results

But, there may be something wrong with my settings?

terryd · 02-18-2011, 08:06 PM

No problems on this end either and I use it regularly.....

Zeb · 02-18-2011, 10:57 PM

No problems here as well. Are you using the latest updated version?

Natlex · 02-19-2011, 01:45 AM

My problem with market samurai is how slow it is... Rank tracker is amazingly slow especially compared to the traffic travis version which I now always use. For keyword research, I just use niche refinery now to sort large amounts of keywords... you can see how I do that on my KW research post on my blog.

Market samurai is great all around, I just find it gets too slow after a while.

neodarth · 02-20-2011, 08:04 AM

I had problems with MS last week, I asked to support and they told me to reinstall adobe air.

All problems fixed and now I'm in love again with MS

ogremagi · 02-20-2011, 09:55 AM

I'm using serpattacks free right now. that plus google keyword tool is enough for me

rbowen · 02-21-2011, 08:33 PM

I use Mkt Sam. Frustrating at times, yes ... not as stable as it might be, perhaps. But I don't know of any one tool that does all that it does. And their customer/tech support is top-shelf.

Before I bought Mkt Sam, I used the SEO plug-in for FireFox. Still do. Pretty cool little tool .. and as far as I know, it's (still) free.

Richard

dannycalifornia · 02-21-2011, 09:56 PM

What the think that were make you frustated? I used it and fine

balara · 02-22-2011, 02:17 AM

It's still my favourite. Actually, it's the only tool I use for kw research and checking out the competition. It performs well for me except when I'm in a hurry and then it spits the dummy!
No doubt my impatience has a thing or two to do with that.

talentshout · 02-22-2011, 02:34 AM

it's working fine from my end....I actually love Market Samurai and have been using it for quite some time. I also started with Traffic Travis but I find Market Samurai more user friendly

jacksonlin · 02-22-2011, 03:49 AM

Rank Tracker is not working at all. It's not bringing in any results.

I think they had an issue with their proxy servers.

gforces · 02-22-2011, 04:32 AM

Generally the software (MS) is running fine for me. Recently they did have some proxy server issues but I appreciate the fact that they communicated about it... their communication and support is top-notch, as some others have noted, and that makes a real difference in todays 'dog eat dog' marketing world.

BradRich · 02-22-2011, 05:22 PM

I have recently started using traffic travis. It is very similar and has a free version as well as a paid version.

MrDack · 02-23-2011, 03:14 AM

MS is a frustratingly slow application, even switching to different keyword tabs can take an age. I'm a software developer by trade and if software I wrote was that slow I'd be out of business.

Performance aside, I still think MS is one of the best keyword research & competition tools out there. The info it gives you and the way it's presented is 1st class.

Don't forget, the software is constantly being revised & improved so hopefully the performance issues will eventually be ironed out.

stefalex · 02-23-2011, 04:04 AM

I'm using it on my Mac and can't complain about the speed. Yes, it's still not perfect but I agree Market Samurai is probably the best keyword research & competition tool on the market.

crowly · 02-23-2011, 12:24 PM

what about MS after Majestic SEO..its all down from here

Rainbow_Warrior · 02-23-2011, 01:15 PM

Problems here too with MS. Progress bar hanging when retrieving data, zero backlink data etc. The MS forum is full of people with the same problems. Hope they get it fixed soon.

Michael Field-Dodgson · 02-23-2011, 02:24 PM

Check your computers capability if your MS is slow - MS needs at least 1 gig of RAM etc to run smoothly,

Cheers

TPFLegionaire · 02-24-2011, 01:16 AM

I have just received an email from MS explaining the situation:

Hi Manuel

As a Market Samurai user you may have noticed problems returning
results with Market Samurai.

In particular, updating your Rank Tracker data, and also analysing
SEOC figures in your Keyword Research module may be failing.

In the last few weeks our servers have been under attack from
unknown sources, causing widespread problems for our users.

Rest assured that we're (literally) working around the clock to
resolve the issue.

===============================
IMPORTANT: What you need to do
===============================

As part of addressing this issue, we've issued a critical update to
Market Samurai.

This is a MANDATORY update, and all older versions of Market
Samurai will not continue to work any longer.

Updating is easy: Simply fire up Market Samurai, and say "Yes" when
the "Update Available" window pops up.

For full details about the situation, please head to our blog.

Noble Samurai » From the Desk of the CEO (We’re Under Attack!)

If you have any problems, please don't hesitate to contact us
support@noblesamurai.com

Thanks so much for your support and understanding in this matter.

All the best,

Alex Green
Noble Samurai

jminkler · 02-24-2011, 05:29 PM

You really have to understand what is going on behind the scenes of these programs that scrape Google data.

1) It is against Google's TOS to reverse engineer PR data, most of these tools do just this.
2) Also against Google's TOS to scrape search pages. The google API for search only returns 4 records at a time (per page) and is not sufficient for most SEO queries, so most tools like this will scrape googles search through the web and not with the api.
3) These tools have to do hundreds of different queries per each keyword.
4) In order not to get "found" these tools have to go through proxies, that rotate, so really you are going from your PC, to the MS servers, through their proxies, to google for each keyword, and then back to the MS server, and back to your PC.

What makes you think this will be fast?

Steven Miranda · 02-24-2011, 05:30 PM

I haven't had any problems with MS yet...

jminkler · 02-24-2011, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TPFLegionaire

I have just received an email from MS explaining the situation:

Hi Manuel

As a Market Samurai user you may have noticed problems returning
results with Market Samurai.

In particular, updating your Rank Tracker data, and also analysing
SEOC figures in your Keyword Research module may be failing.

In the last few weeks our servers have been under attack from
unknown sources, causing widespread problems for our users.

Rest assured that we're (literally) working around the clock to
resolve the issue.

===============================
IMPORTANT: What you need to do
===============================

As part of addressing this issue, we've issued a critical update to
Market Samurai.

This is a MANDATORY update, and all older versions of Market
Samurai will not continue to work any longer.

Updating is easy: Simply fire up Market Samurai, and say "Yes" when
the "Update Available" window pops up.

For full details about the situation, please head to our blog.

Noble Samurai » From the Desk of the CEO (We’re Under Attack!)

If you have any problems, please don't hesitate to contact us
support@noblesamurai.com

Thanks so much for your support and understanding in this matter.

All the best,

Alex Green
Noble Samurai

With Google cracking down on JCP and Overstock lately, I wouldn't be surprised if this was google attacking them to prove they are Illegally getting google data. By increasing their traffic it may be possible that google can tell (from the queries they are submitting to MS) which IP ranges now belong to MS, and thereby know they aren't on the up and up.

TPFLegionaire · 02-25-2011, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jminkler

With Google cracking down on JCP and Overstock lately, I wouldn't be surprised if this was google attacking them to prove they are Illegally getting google data. By increasing their traffic it may be possible that google can tell (from the queries they are submitting to MS) which IP ranges now belong to MS, and thereby know they aren't on the up and up.

I don't know...Seems preposterous to me, would Google really "attack" them with technological means? Like some kind of low life (albeit powerful) DDOS script kiddies?

If they are breaking Google TOS and they can prove it, wouldn't it be easier and more effective to fire up a lawyer's letter asking them to desist?

janner43 · 02-25-2011, 03:05 AM

Latest from Market Samurai today - looks as if they have had a bad week!
Hang in there.

"Hi Everyone,

Google have just made a major change to the Google Keyword Tool which is preventing Market Samurai from gathering keyword data.

Our development team are currently working on a fix for this issue, however it looks like it will not be complete, tested and released by tonight.

I’m very sorry about the disruption that has been caused to you all over the past week and I will keep you up to date on our progress.

As soon as we have an ETA on the fix I will let you know.

Regards
Miriam

Edit: The development team have outdone themselves. We are currently testing a fix and hope to release very soon."

Flareman · 02-27-2011, 02:05 AM

I've had a frustrating week with MS too. Ever since the upgrade and them changing to use Majestic SEO, the backlinks information have been inaccurate!

The speed of searches have improved slightly today but for the past few days, it was at a crawling speed...

Is anyone else seeing a discrepancy of backlink data on your Rank Tracker?

glacey · 03-01-2011, 11:32 AM

Just downloaded another upgrade and the backlink data is still way out

sentient · 03-01-2011, 02:43 PM

The forum is now down for a "planned" upgrade (just when there happens to be a lot of problems - looks like they are running scared).

Not getting any response from the support tickets.

Not good at all - I really like MS, but it shows how reliant on one tool you can be when it suddenly stops working.

If the support does a runner then it does look like the beginning of the end.

rbowen · 03-01-2011, 03:19 PM

It's a bit on the long side, but I've posted below an email that I got last night (along with all paid-subscribers) from Noble Samurai, the creators of Market Samurai, as I think it'll put things in perspective.

Hope this helps.

Richard

==========================

Hi Richard

I'm emailing you to say sorry.

In the last week and a half, attacks on our servers and changes to
the Google Keyword Tool have seen some modules of Market Samurai
functioning well below their normal high standard.

You may have been affected...

If so, we want to make it up to you!

=====================
WHAT HAS HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES
=====================

### Servers Under Attack! ###

If you were already a paid Market Samurai user, some of your Market
Samurai modules may not have been functioning correctly and you may
not have been able to make effective use of the software.

Since last Friday, outside sources have been overloading our
back-end servers with illegitimate requests. We detected multiple
sources attempting to commit pay-per-click fraud using our servers.

This resulted in the servers being unable to return data to our own
users.

To resolve this issue we introduced a new authentication system
into Market Samurai and tuned our servers to significantly improve
their performance.

We also located and fixed a bug we introduced into Market Samurai
earlier this month which was contributing to the load on our
servers by sending too many queries at once.

With these two major updates in place, the load on our servers
decreased to safe levels once again.

### Google Keyword Tool Update! ###

Shortly after we released the updates to Market Samurai to return
service to you, Google released a new update to the Google Keyword
Tool.

This new update led to Market Samurai being unable to interface
with the Keyword Tool, and therefore meant no data could be
gathered.

Our development team have updated Market Samurai with the required
code to allow it to interface with the Keyword Tool once again.

With these fixes in place, we have monitored Market Samurai for
several days to ensure that the issues have subsided.

================================
HERE'S HOW WE'RE SAYING SORRY...
================================

While Market Samurai is now up and running once more, we want to
make up for the inconvenience to you over the last week and a half.

AS YOU OWN A COPY OF MARKET SAMURAI...

...we've increased the number of activations on your license from 2
to 3! This means you can now activate Market Samurai on 3 computers
at once, giving you more freedom with the software.

=====================
Getting Support
=====================

If you have any questions, or if you encounter any problems using
Market Samurai, please contact us and we'll do what we can to help
you.

Our email address is support@noblesamurai.com

Finally - again, I want to apologise for any trouble caused.

Best regards,

Alex Green
Noble Samurai

Noble Samurai, Level 1, 234 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading, Victoria 3131, AUSTRALIA

sentient · 03-01-2011, 03:36 PM

Hi Richard

I did get that email from MS, however, it doesn't really negate the fact that they have taken their forum down at the most sensitive period since MS launched, and their support appear to have stopped living up to their name.

They can send as many explanation emails out, and offer to allow me to use MS on 1000 different PCs, but if I can't actually use it, and they are not responding to support tickets then it doesn't really help.

cypherslock · 03-01-2011, 03:40 PM

I found a bug and reported it. Got prompt reply back too. I think everyone frankly needs to lay off the team for a bit. I get the sense that they are NOT some huge company. They've not let me down since I purchased way back in 2008. I see no reason to abandon them, and frankly find the gnashing of teeth quite amusing.

alsmith1 · 03-01-2011, 04:26 PM

Hi I received this email yesterday from the team at MS, sounds like they are working to fix any problems, sounds like they are giving current users an additional license to make up for all the problems, personally I have been extremely impressed with MS and consider it to be one of the best research tools I have ever used.

Hi Allen

I'm emailing you to say sorry.

In the last week and a half, attacks on our servers and changes to
the Google Keyword Tool have seen some modules of Market Samurai
functioning well below their normal high standard.

You may have been affected...

If so, we want to make it up to you!

=====================
WHAT HAS HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES
=====================

### Servers Under Attack! ###

If you were already a paid Market Samurai user, some of your Market
Samurai modules may not have been functioning correctly and you may
not have been able to make effective use of the software.

Since last Friday, outside sources have been overloading our
back-end servers with illegitimate requests. We detected multiple
sources attempting to commit pay-per-click fraud using our servers.

This resulted in the servers being unable to return data to our own
users.

To resolve this issue we introduced a new authentication system
into Market Samurai and tuned our servers to significantly improve
their performance.

We also located and fixed a bug we introduced into Market Samurai
earlier this month which was contributing to the load on our
servers by sending too many queries at once.

With these two major updates in place, the load on our servers
decreased to safe levels once again.

### Google Keyword Tool Update! ###

Shortly after we released the updates to Market Samurai to return
service to you, Google released a new update to the Google Keyword
Tool.

This new update led to Market Samurai being unable to interface
with the Keyword Tool, and therefore meant no data could be
gathered.

Our development team have updated Market Samurai with the required
code to allow it to interface with the Keyword Tool once again.

With these fixes in place, we have monitored Market Samurai for
several days to ensure that the issues have subsided.

================================
HERE'S HOW WE'RE SAYING SORRY...
================================

While Market Samurai is now up and running once more, we want to
make up for the inconvenience to you over the last week and a half.

AS YOU OWN A COPY OF MARKET SAMURAI...

...we've increased the number of activations on your license from 2
to 3! This means you can now activate Market Samurai on 3 computers
at once, giving you more freedom with the software.

=====================
Getting Support
=====================

If you have any questions, or if you encounter any problems using
Market Samurai, please contact us and we'll do what we can to help
you.

Our email address is support@noblesamurai.com

Finally - again, I want to apologise for any trouble caused.

Best regards,

Alex Green
Noble Samurai

Noble Samurai, Level 1, 234 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading, Victoria 3131, AUSTRALIA

rbowen · 03-01-2011, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sentient

Hi Richard

I did get that email from MS, however, it doesn't really negate the fact that they have taken their forum down at the most sensitive period since MS launched, and their support appear to have stopped living up to their name.

They can send as many explanation emails out, and offer to allow me to use MS on 1000 different PCs, but if I can't actually use it, and they are not responding to support tickets then it doesn't really help.

First of all, I'm not a Marketing-Samurai-apologist. I was just trying to help - you and anyone else who might not have gotten the email - put things in some kind of perspective. That's all.

I wasn't trying to discount or dismiss your frustration.

Second, if you don't want to use Mkt Sam any longer, or at least until they get through this crisis, then don't.

What do you want them ... or for that matter, anybody in the WF ... to say or do for you, exactly?

They're in crisis. Hello!?! Like, they just spent God-only-knows how much time, effort & money researching & developing a massive upgrade to Mkt Sam and - just before they could finish implementing the upgrade - their server comes under a massive, persistent attack!?!

And you're complaining that they're not answering your support ticket(s) as readily as you'd like?

Would you expect any of their competitors to handle such a crisis any better? If so, go with them.

I don't know what you want me to say? I just assumed you hadn't gotten or read the email and I was just offering what I thought was a bit of helpful perspective to you and others.

Personally, I have been very satisfied with Mkt Sam and I'm willing to give them the time that they need to get through this crisis.

That said, if by this time next month, things are no better, then I might look into buying one the competing tools out there.

Hope you survive your crisis.

Richard

Mark Bradley · 03-02-2011, 09:44 AM

I would echo some of the sentiments expressed here.
Brent and the MS team are 100% genuine and ethical
and I know that they will be bursting their balls to
fix the problems,so I'm not throwing my toys out of
the pram just yet.

Because they had one bad day at the office, it
doesn't necessarily warrant a 'verbal kicking'.

Sh*t happens,we just have to learn to adapt.

kellio48 · 03-02-2011, 11:32 AM

I too was having major problems with MS and so were 100's of other people as their forum reflected.
There were numerous posts within the forum about the issues.
However, they have been working around the clock to try and rectify the problems which apparently was caused by changed made by Google Add Words Tool.

I received an email from Brent Hodgson, (one of the key people in MS) a couple of days ago which was in the way of an apology along with a bonus as compensation for the inconvenience suffered by it's thousands of users.
Brent assured me that everything was OK now, however in trying to use it since, I still find it to be exceptionally slow compared to how it had been previously and the forum mentioned above has now been closed.
The reason given for the closure is that they are creating a bigger, better, bright and shiny new forum.
Personally I think that starting a new forum is a reflection on the negativity of many of the recent posts by people having problems and I'll bet that all those posts will not be included in the new forum.
However, having said that, I've been using MS since it's conception around 3 years ago with great success in keyword research and I still stand behind the team because of their integrity and honesty in admitting to the issues and have every confidence that it will be back up and running in it's full glory once these issues are sorted completely.

sentient · 03-02-2011, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbowen

First of all, I'm not a Marketing-Samurai-apologist. I was just trying to help - you and anyone else who might not have gotten the email - put things in some kind of perspective. That's all.

I wasn't trying to discount or dismiss your frustration.

Second, if you don't want to use Mkt Sam any longer, or at least until they get through this crisis, then don't.

What do you want them ... or for that matter, anybody in the WF ... to say or do for you, exactly?

They're in crisis. Hello!?! Like, they just spent God-only-knows how much time, effort & money researching & developing a massive upgrade to Mkt Sam and - just before they could finish implementing the upgrade - their server comes under a massive, persistent attack!?!

And you're complaining that they're not answering your support ticket(s) as readily as you'd like?

Would you expect any of their competitors to handle such a crisis any better? If so, go with them.

I don't know what you want me to say? I just assumed you hadn't gotten or read the email and I was just offering what I thought was a bit of helpful perspective to you and others.

Personally, I have been very satisfied with Mkt Sam and I'm willing to give them the time that they need to get through this crisis.

That said, if by this time next month, things are no better, then I might look into buying one the competing tools out there.

Hope you survive your crisis.

Richard

"or at least until they get through this crisis, then don't." - what crisis? According to the email you posted, the problems were sorted.

"What do you want them ... or for that matter, anybody in the WF ... to say or do for you, exactly?" - nothing, just giving my opinion about an internet marketing product. Apologies, I thought this was the Internet Marketing Product Reviews section.

"And you're complaining that they're not answering your support ticket(s) as readily as you'd like?" - I'm complaining that my product doesn't work, despite the fact that we have been told the problems have been sorted. I'm complaining that the one area where users could advise each other on how to sort the problems (the forums) have been taken down at such a crucial time. And yes, that my support tickets haven't been resolved. I don't think any of those complaints are unreasonable, however acknowledge that this is a subjective opinion.

"I don't know what you want me to say?" - I don't particulary want you to say anything, given that I don't know who you are, however would encourage you to say whatever you wanted to. Giving your opinion about the product is absolutely fine, and you standing up for MS is great (and probably justified) - just please don't tell me what my opinion should be.

"Hope you survive your crisis" - and I thought it was just us Brits who used sarcasm extensively in internet forums

.

My version of MS isn't working at all at the moment, by the way. However I would welcome your opinion on that.

jacksonlin · 03-02-2011, 06:41 PM

Rank Tracker results are different from when I do a manual Google check.

So the results are wrong or inaccurate, is that the case for others as well?

Seeking Knowledge · 03-03-2011, 01:54 AM

Comforting to see it wasn't just me experiencing very poor results with MS. But as mentioned by another, their Traffic Travis is working just fine, time to dust it off till the problems are resolved with MS.

abs007 · 03-03-2011, 05:41 AM

got a free keyword suggestion tool in my sig if you would like a play with that - actually scrapes suggestions so its kind of different -

salegurus · 03-03-2011, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seeking Knowledge

Comforting to see it wasn't just me experiencing very poor results. But as mentioned by another, their Traffic travis is working just fine, time to dust it off till the problems are resolved wioth MS.

Funny you should say that

I also had trafic travis sitting on my HD unused since i got MS about 2 years ago. But just re-installed it yesterday and using it until MS recovers (Hopefully)
Since keyword research is the cornerstone of any IM project i really hope MS can recover, if not i hope someone comes up with a comparable tool.
Cheers

Seeking Knowledge · 03-06-2011, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abs007

got a free keyword suggestion tool in my sig if you would like a play with that - actually scrapes suggestions so its kind of different -

That is a cool and useful free tool - thanks

pavionjsl · 03-07-2011, 07:47 AM

ABS tool is pretty cool. I gave up on micro niche finder!

abs007 · 03-07-2011, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seeking Knowledge

That is a cool and useful free tool - thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by pavionjsl

ABS tool is pretty cool. I gave up on micro niche finder!

Your welcome guys

Just happy you like it

Flareman · 03-10-2011, 09:36 AM

Is anyone seeing inaccurate backlink information since MS adopted Majestic SEO instead of Yahoo Site Explorer?

cypherslock · 03-10-2011, 11:25 AM

With the latest update you again can choose between MAjestico and Yahoo. WOOT!

John Reed · 03-10-2011, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crowly

what about MS after Majestic SEO..its all down from here

I'm afraid I don't understand this query-cum-statement??
What's Majestic SEO?

John

GlenH · 03-10-2011, 04:31 PM

If you write articles..Money Keyword Finder is simple to use, and makes it easy to chose the keywords that have the most 'rankable' potential.

I've been using it now for 9 months and wouldn't use anything else

02-18-2011, 06:40 PM	#1
jasonjohnson Warrior Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 9 Thanks: 1 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I assume I am not the only one to be massively frustrated with market samurai after reading around. Anyone know any good alternatives to this tool? My favorite feature was how I could see search data, seoc and seotc etc very easily. Also I loved the seo competition research module where I could see the top 10 sites and all the info then drill down to see their backlinks and anchor txt. Anyone know a tool that offers those features?

02-18-2011, 06:51 PM	#2
dp40oz Full Control SEO War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 899 Thanks: 10 Thanked 145 Times in 106 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? What exactly is frustrating you? Mine is working great.

02-18-2011, 06:55 PM	#3
Sam Thompson Active Warrior Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Perth, WA Posts: 53 Thanks: 4 Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts Social Networking	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Mine works great also. I wouldn't use anything else What seems to be your problem with it?

02-18-2011, 08:06 PM	#6
terryd Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: New Zealand. Posts: 1,242 Thanks: 99 Thanked 75 Times in 66 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? No problems on this end either and I use it regularly.....

02-18-2011, 10:57 PM	#7
Zeb Ultimate Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Where The Heart Desires... Posts: 517 Thanks: 21 Thanked 60 Times in 56 Posts Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? No problems here as well. Are you using the latest updated version?

02-19-2011, 01:45 AM	#8
Natlex HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Canada Posts: 390 Thanks: 33 Thanked 28 Times in 21 Posts Social Networking	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? My problem with market samurai is how slow it is... Rank tracker is amazingly slow especially compared to the traffic travis version which I now always use. For keyword research, I just use niche refinery now to sort large amounts of keywords... you can see how I do that on my KW research post on my blog. Market samurai is great all around, I just find it gets too slow after a while.

02-20-2011, 08:04 AM	#9
neodarth Eternal Newbie War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Santiago, Chile Posts: 433 Thanks: 91 Thanked 122 Times in 66 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I had problems with MS last week, I asked to support and they told me to reinstall adobe air. All problems fixed and now I'm in love again with MS

02-20-2011, 09:55 AM	#10
ogremagi Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 23 Thanks: 11 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I'm using serpattacks free right now. that plus google keyword tool is enough for me

02-21-2011, 08:33 PM	#11
rbowen Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Good Ole USofA Posts: 693 Thanks: 557 Thanked 123 Times in 98 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I use Mkt Sam. Frustrating at times, yes ... not as stable as it might be, perhaps. But I don't know of any one tool that does all that it does. And their customer/tech support is top-shelf. Before I bought Mkt Sam, I used the SEO plug-in for FireFox. Still do. Pretty cool little tool .. and as far as I know, it's (still) free. Richard

02-21-2011, 09:56 PM	#12
dannycalifornia HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 137 Thanks: 2 Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? What the think that were make you frustated? I used it and fine

02-22-2011, 02:17 AM	#13
balara HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Adelaide South Australia. Posts: 136 Thanks: 82 Thanked 27 Times in 19 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? It's still my favourite. Actually, it's the only tool I use for kw research and checking out the competition. It performs well for me except when I'm in a hurry and then it spits the dummy! No doubt my impatience has a thing or two to do with that.

02-22-2011, 02:34 AM	#14
talentshout Active Warrior Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Makati, Philippines Posts: 43 Thanks: 6 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? it's working fine from my end....I actually love Market Samurai and have been using it for quite some time. I also started with Traffic Travis but I find Market Samurai more user friendly

02-22-2011, 03:49 AM	#15
jacksonlin Up & Coming Internet Guru War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 578 Thanks: 29 Thanked 72 Times in 56 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Rank Tracker is not working at all. It's not bringing in any results. I think they had an issue with their proxy servers.

02-22-2011, 04:32 AM	#16
gforces HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Chiba, Japan. Posts: 198 Thanks: 3 Thanked 67 Times in 31 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Generally the software (MS) is running fine for me. Recently they did have some proxy server issues but I appreciate the fact that they communicated about it... their communication and support is top-notch, as some others have noted, and that makes a real difference in todays 'dog eat dog' marketing world.

02-22-2011, 05:22 PM	#17
BradRich HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 175 Thanks: 46 Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I have recently started using traffic travis. It is very similar and has a free version as well as a paid version.

02-23-2011, 03:14 AM	#18
MrDack HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: South Wales, UK Posts: 157 Thanks: 51 Thanked 27 Times in 25 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? MS is a frustratingly slow application, even switching to different keyword tabs can take an age. I'm a software developer by trade and if software I wrote was that slow I'd be out of business. Performance aside, I still think MS is one of the best keyword research & competition tools out there. The info it gives you and the way it's presented is 1st class. Don't forget, the software is constantly being revised & improved so hopefully the performance issues will eventually be ironed out.

02-23-2011, 04:04 AM	#19
stefalex Active Warrior Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Melbourne Posts: 78 Thanks: 1 Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts Social Networking	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I'm using it on my Mac and can't complain about the speed. Yes, it's still not perfect but I agree Market Samurai is probably the best keyword research & competition tool on the market.

02-23-2011, 12:24 PM	#20
crowly Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 80 Thanks: 4 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? what about MS after Majestic SEO..its all down from here

02-23-2011, 01:15 PM	#21
Rainbow_Warrior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom Posts: 14 Thanks: 8 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Problems here too with MS. Progress bar hanging when retrieving data, zero backlink data etc. The MS forum is full of people with the same problems. Hope they get it fixed soon.

02-23-2011, 02:24 PM	#22
Michael Field-Dodgson Active Warrior Join Date: May 2010 Location: Canterbury, New Zealand Posts: 84 Thanks: 20 Thanked 20 Times in 17 Posts Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Check your computers capability if your MS is slow - MS needs at least 1 gig of RAM etc to run smoothly, Cheers

02-24-2011, 01:16 AM	#23
TPFLegionaire Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Swindon Posts: 691 Thanks: 621 Thanked 246 Times in 154 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I have just received an email from MS explaining the situation: Hi Manuel As a Market Samurai user you may have noticed problems returning results with Market Samurai. In particular, updating your Rank Tracker data, and also analysing SEOC figures in your Keyword Research module may be failing. In the last few weeks our servers have been under attack from unknown sources, causing widespread problems for our users. Rest assured that we're (literally) working around the clock to resolve the issue. =============================== IMPORTANT: What you need to do =============================== As part of addressing this issue, we've issued a critical update to Market Samurai. This is a MANDATORY update, and all older versions of Market Samurai will not continue to work any longer. Updating is easy: Simply fire up Market Samurai, and say "Yes" when the "Update Available" window pops up. For full details about the situation, please head to our blog. Noble Samurai » From the Desk of the CEO (We’re Under Attack!) If you have any problems, please don't hesitate to contact us support@noblesamurai.com Thanks so much for your support and understanding in this matter. All the best, Alex Green Noble Samurai

02-24-2011, 05:29 PM	#24
jminkler WebNinja Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Atlanta GA Posts: 419 Thanks: 17 Thanked 51 Times in 32 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? You really have to understand what is going on behind the scenes of these programs that scrape Google data. 1) It is against Google's TOS to reverse engineer PR data, most of these tools do just this. 2) Also against Google's TOS to scrape search pages. The google API for search only returns 4 records at a time (per page) and is not sufficient for most SEO queries, so most tools like this will scrape googles search through the web and not with the api. 3) These tools have to do hundreds of different queries per each keyword. 4) In order not to get "found" these tools have to go through proxies, that rotate, so really you are going from your PC, to the MS servers, through their proxies, to google for each keyword, and then back to the MS server, and back to your PC. What makes you think this will be fast?

02-24-2011, 05:30 PM	#25
Steven Miranda Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: USA Posts: 2,125 Thanks: 737 Thanked 244 Times in 195 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I haven't had any problems with MS yet...

02-25-2011, 03:05 AM	#28
janner43 Dave Whittle War Room Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Orebro,Sweden , . Posts: 6 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Latest from Market Samurai today - looks as if they have had a bad week! Hang in there. "Hi Everyone, Google have just made a major change to the Google Keyword Tool which is preventing Market Samurai from gathering keyword data. Our development team are currently working on a fix for this issue, however it looks like it will not be complete, tested and released by tonight. I’m very sorry about the disruption that has been caused to you all over the past week and I will keep you up to date on our progress. As soon as we have an ETA on the fix I will let you know. Regards Miriam Edit: The development team have outdone themselves. We are currently testing a fix and hope to release very soon."

02-27-2011, 02:05 AM	#29
Flareman Thinker, Learner, Do'er War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 211 Thanks: 35 Thanked 10 Times in 10 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I've had a frustrating week with MS too. Ever since the upgrade and them changing to use Majestic SEO, the backlinks information have been inaccurate! The speed of searches have improved slightly today but for the past few days, it was at a crawling speed... Is anyone else seeing a discrepancy of backlink data on your Rank Tracker?

03-01-2011, 11:32 AM	#30
glacey Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 81 Thanks: 9 Thanked 5 Times in 4 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Just downloaded another upgrade and the backlink data is still way out

03-01-2011, 02:43 PM	#31
sentient HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 321 Thanks: 83 Thanked 40 Times in 35 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? The forum is now down for a "planned" upgrade (just when there happens to be a lot of problems - looks like they are running scared). Not getting any response from the support tickets. Not good at all - I really like MS, but it shows how reliant on one tool you can be when it suddenly stops working. If the support does a runner then it does look like the beginning of the end.

03-01-2011, 03:19 PM	#32
rbowen Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Good Ole USofA Posts: 693 Thanks: 557 Thanked 123 Times in 98 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? It's a bit on the long side, but I've posted below an email that I got last night (along with all paid-subscribers) from Noble Samurai, the creators of Market Samurai, as I think it'll put things in perspective. Hope this helps. Richard ========================== Hi Richard I'm emailing you to say sorry. In the last week and a half, attacks on our servers and changes to the Google Keyword Tool have seen some modules of Market Samurai functioning well below their normal high standard. You may have been affected... If so, we want to make it up to you! ===================== WHAT HAS HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES ===================== ### Servers Under Attack! ### If you were already a paid Market Samurai user, some of your Market Samurai modules may not have been functioning correctly and you may not have been able to make effective use of the software. Since last Friday, outside sources have been overloading our back-end servers with illegitimate requests. We detected multiple sources attempting to commit pay-per-click fraud using our servers. This resulted in the servers being unable to return data to our own users. To resolve this issue we introduced a new authentication system into Market Samurai and tuned our servers to significantly improve their performance. We also located and fixed a bug we introduced into Market Samurai earlier this month which was contributing to the load on our servers by sending too many queries at once. With these two major updates in place, the load on our servers decreased to safe levels once again. ### Google Keyword Tool Update! ### Shortly after we released the updates to Market Samurai to return service to you, Google released a new update to the Google Keyword Tool. This new update led to Market Samurai being unable to interface with the Keyword Tool, and therefore meant no data could be gathered. Our development team have updated Market Samurai with the required code to allow it to interface with the Keyword Tool once again. With these fixes in place, we have monitored Market Samurai for several days to ensure that the issues have subsided. ================================ HERE'S HOW WE'RE SAYING SORRY... ================================ While Market Samurai is now up and running once more, we want to make up for the inconvenience to you over the last week and a half. AS YOU OWN A COPY OF MARKET SAMURAI... ...we've increased the number of activations on your license from 2 to 3! This means you can now activate Market Samurai on 3 computers at once, giving you more freedom with the software. ===================== Getting Support ===================== If you have any questions, or if you encounter any problems using Market Samurai, please contact us and we'll do what we can to help you. Our email address is support@noblesamurai.com Finally - again, I want to apologise for any trouble caused. Best regards, Alex Green Noble Samurai Noble Samurai, Level 1, 234 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading, Victoria 3131, AUSTRALIA

03-01-2011, 03:36 PM	#33
sentient HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 321 Thanks: 83 Thanked 40 Times in 35 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Hi Richard I did get that email from MS, however, it doesn't really negate the fact that they have taken their forum down at the most sensitive period since MS launched, and their support appear to have stopped living up to their name. They can send as many explanation emails out, and offer to allow me to use MS on 1000 different PCs, but if I can't actually use it, and they are not responding to support tickets then it doesn't really help.

03-01-2011, 03:40 PM	#34
cypherslock Always be learning War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Posts: 1,993 Blog Entries: 2 Thanks: 373 Thanked 449 Times in 333 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I found a bug and reported it. Got prompt reply back too. I think everyone frankly needs to lay off the team for a bit. I get the sense that they are NOT some huge company. They've not let me down since I purchased way back in 2008. I see no reason to abandon them, and frankly find the gnashing of teeth quite amusing.

03-01-2011, 04:26 PM	#35
alsmith1 Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: , , USA. Posts: 84 Thanks: 27 Thanked 10 Times in 9 Posts Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Hi I received this email yesterday from the team at MS, sounds like they are working to fix any problems, sounds like they are giving current users an additional license to make up for all the problems, personally I have been extremely impressed with MS and consider it to be one of the best research tools I have ever used. Hi Allen I'm emailing you to say sorry. In the last week and a half, attacks on our servers and changes to the Google Keyword Tool have seen some modules of Market Samurai functioning well below their normal high standard. You may have been affected... If so, we want to make it up to you! ===================== WHAT HAS HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES ===================== ### Servers Under Attack! ### If you were already a paid Market Samurai user, some of your Market Samurai modules may not have been functioning correctly and you may not have been able to make effective use of the software. Since last Friday, outside sources have been overloading our back-end servers with illegitimate requests. We detected multiple sources attempting to commit pay-per-click fraud using our servers. This resulted in the servers being unable to return data to our own users. To resolve this issue we introduced a new authentication system into Market Samurai and tuned our servers to significantly improve their performance. We also located and fixed a bug we introduced into Market Samurai earlier this month which was contributing to the load on our servers by sending too many queries at once. With these two major updates in place, the load on our servers decreased to safe levels once again. ### Google Keyword Tool Update! ### Shortly after we released the updates to Market Samurai to return service to you, Google released a new update to the Google Keyword Tool. This new update led to Market Samurai being unable to interface with the Keyword Tool, and therefore meant no data could be gathered. Our development team have updated Market Samurai with the required code to allow it to interface with the Keyword Tool once again. With these fixes in place, we have monitored Market Samurai for several days to ensure that the issues have subsided. ================================ HERE'S HOW WE'RE SAYING SORRY... ================================ While Market Samurai is now up and running once more, we want to make up for the inconvenience to you over the last week and a half. AS YOU OWN A COPY OF MARKET SAMURAI... ...we've increased the number of activations on your license from 2 to 3! This means you can now activate Market Samurai on 3 computers at once, giving you more freedom with the software. ===================== Getting Support ===================== If you have any questions, or if you encounter any problems using Market Samurai, please contact us and we'll do what we can to help you. Our email address is support@noblesamurai.com Finally - again, I want to apologise for any trouble caused. Best regards, Alex Green Noble Samurai Noble Samurai, Level 1, 234 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading, Victoria 3131, AUSTRALIA

03-02-2011, 09:44 AM	#37
Mark Bradley HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Braveheart Country Posts: 191 Thanks: 37 Thanked 38 Times in 34 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I would echo some of the sentiments expressed here. Brent and the MS team are 100% genuine and ethical and I know that they will be bursting their balls to fix the problems,so I'm not throwing my toys out of the pram just yet. Because they had one bad day at the office, it doesn't necessarily warrant a 'verbal kicking'. Sh*t happens,we just have to learn to adapt.

03-02-2011, 11:32 AM	#38
kellio48 Active Warrior Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Gold Coast (Qld. Australia) Posts: 79 Thanks: 8 Thanked 14 Times in 13 Posts Contact Info	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? I too was having major problems with MS and so were 100's of other people as their forum reflected. There were numerous posts within the forum about the issues. However, they have been working around the clock to try and rectify the problems which apparently was caused by changed made by Google Add Words Tool. I received an email from Brent Hodgson, (one of the key people in MS) a couple of days ago which was in the way of an apology along with a bonus as compensation for the inconvenience suffered by it's thousands of users. Brent assured me that everything was OK now, however in trying to use it since, I still find it to be exceptionally slow compared to how it had been previously and the forum mentioned above has now been closed. The reason given for the closure is that they are creating a bigger, better, bright and shiny new forum. Personally I think that starting a new forum is a reflection on the negativity of many of the recent posts by people having problems and I'll bet that all those posts will not be included in the new forum. However, having said that, I've been using MS since it's conception around 3 years ago with great success in keyword research and I still stand behind the team because of their integrity and honesty in admitting to the issues and have every confidence that it will be back up and running in it's full glory once these issues are sorted completely.

03-02-2011, 06:41 PM	#40
jacksonlin Up & Coming Internet Guru War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 578 Thanks: 29 Thanked 72 Times in 56 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Rank Tracker results are different from when I do a manual Google check. So the results are wrong or inaccurate, is that the case for others as well?

03-03-2011, 01:54 AM	#41
Seeking Knowledge Active Warrior Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: USA Posts: 55 Thanks: 20 Thanked 14 Times in 4 Posts	Re: Anyone else frustrated with Market Samurai? Alternatives? Comforting to see it wasn't just me experiencing very poor results with MS. But as mentioned by another, their Traffic Travis is working just fine, time to dust it off till the problems are resolved with MS.
	Last edited by Seeking Knowledge; 03-06-2011 at 11:54 PM. Reason: spelling