Forum Moderators: phranque
I've never seen any detailed reasons why people think this tool is of no value. I'm using the trial version which doesn't even provide you with all their info, but...
The top 10 competitors analysis report is a nice starting point to look at what components of each top 10 site - might have contributed to their high listing position. I've been in this site for a month and it gets hard to seperate the chafe from the wheat (or is it the other way around? anyway). This tool at least identifies many many factors and a few others that everyone agonizes over here in these forums. The fact that the factors listed in their reports cover the same aspects discussed here, leads me to believe they can't be totally off.
As I can't afford to pay for the complete version, I only see detailed information on things like Page Title and Meta Tags & a few others. It provides statistical analysis and suggests possible areas of improvement. Suggestions do seem reasonable. After reviewing the many factors they bother to analyze, you can simply drill into each top 10 site to verify the presence of these elements in these site - AND draw your own conclusions.
Of course you need to factor in differences based on competitiveness of the search phrase and I don't recall any info on the all important linkbacks which according to another post thread can be very misleading - due to poor SE reporting of these.
I've made alot of changes to my site after working through this tool and factoring in this forums discussions. Hopefully, I'll know how well I've interpreted things after the next dance.
Better alternatives to this approach?
Because the method by hand is 1000 fold more trustworthy and reliable.
This is generally why we don't talk about commercial software here as it breaks down as either pumping or whinning about a product.
Save yourself the hassle and get friendly with your favorite spreasheet.
