What are good free SEO auditing tools?

[fretfull]

Looking for recommendations for good free SEO auditing tools. I already use the one built into Chrome but I don't feel like it's very comprehensive.

[goodroi]

If anyone wants to share a suggestion please make sure to mention what you LIKE & DON'T LIKE.
No tool is perfect so be fair & honest. If we suspect any spamming we are going to delete without asking questions.

Here' are some previous tool threads.
Battle of the SEO Tools [webmasterworld.com]
Best SEO Tools for finding bad links to Disavow? [webmasterworld.com]
2015 - Your Favourite Google Targeted SEO Tools [webmasterworld.com]

[aristotle]

In my opinion people often waste a lot of time playing around with SEO tools, when they could better spend that time working on their sites. I prefer to make my own observations and do my own analysis. I do look at GSC sometimes for things like crawl stats, and Xenu to check for broken links, but haven't used anything else in a long time.

[martinibuster]

I don't feel free tools provide the comprehensive level of information that is needed to do a proper site audit. There will be huge gaps in data, resulting in more work (wheel spinning) and neglected opportunities.

The cost of paid tools are so low that it's irresponsible to provide an SEO service without at least one.

[browndog]

The cost of paid tools are so low that it's irresponsible to provide an SEO service without at least one.

I looked into a subscription with a well known tool but it was $100 US per month. Considering how little my site brings in now, I actually found it to be really expensive. If it was $10 I'd consider it but $100 is way beyond my budget in lean times.

[aristotle]

In my earlier post I forgot to mention that I also use the free WC3 tools for checking html and css:
[validator.w3.org ]
[jigsaw.w3.org ]

There's also some resourcess for color codes such as
[w3schools.com ]

Other useful resources include minifiers, reverse IP lookups, online spell-checkers, etc

[fretfull]

@Goodroi, thanks. I'll check those threads out.

@Aristotle, that's what I used to think too. Used to. But now much newer sites with much less content are ranked higher in the various search engines than I am. Having a great website doesn't matter if no one can find you. It's been a progressive thing. I used to be #1 for years but slipped to #3 over the last couple of years. Then seemingly overnight, a few weeks ago, I fell off the map. First on Google and then on the others a few weeks later. I wasn't even on the first page anymore but on page 2 or 3. I tweaked a couple of words in my title and now I'm back on page 1. At the bottom of page 1 but still better than page 2. So now SEO optimization is definitely on my mind.

I can only think of a couple of things that may have changed things so precipitously. I had the same title for years and I'm searching using the same keywords that were in my title.

1) I eliminated all things Google because of GDPR. No Adsense and no Analytics. Does removing Google effect Google page ranking?

2) I'm pretty sure someone paid for negative SEO on my site. Some made up negative comments started popping up. The comments didn't even apply to content served by my site. They were not kind. I dropped a few spots shortly after those comments were posted. A few weeks later I received an email from a company claiming that they were the ones that were hired to do the negative SEO on my site and whether I wanted to respond in kind. It could all be coincidental.

@Martinibuster, I'm not looking to provide a SEO service. I'm looking to improve my own ranking.

[martinibuster]

I'm looking to improve my own ranking.

Then my message applies twice as much. Investigate multiple tools. Some allow you to test drive them. Some have a month to month subscription.

I can't vouch for a number of tools out there. What's on offer is imo useless or catering to false SEO signals.

I'm very well aware of what's free and incorporate those tools as well into my workflow. But knowing what's out there for free I also use the paid tools because I know they fall short. I use them for my own sites as well as for clients.

Good luck!
;)

Roger Montti

[tangor]

But now much newer sites with much less content are ranked higher in the various search engines than I am. Having a great website doesn't matter

Of course not! You kiddies know why, right? All bait and switch. G made you famous back then, then downgraded you and they are bringing up the the next gen of pay to pay kiddies.

Else your #1 would still be number one.

Follow the money.

[Madaboutdm1719]

Free tools for what? You have many free tools to just get the outfit of your website! Say, Site loading speed, backlinks, Free Site Audit etc. But, looking to increase your ranking on Google and beat your competitors? How do you know their backlinks, DA, PA etc.

Investing for a tool for your own business will shorten the time to get the success. Come On, its just for the few conversions you opt for, then the money is all yours ;-)

[Shai]

Edit: did not see the Free bit. sorry. If you want free then ignore my list. All of those are quite expensive but as Martinibuster says, you get what you pay for. Might be ok for one or two sites but any more and the time and data quality implications are huge.


We use:

Majestic SEO - Perfect for a quick look. Spot dodgy links in seconds. Get a good view of the type of domains in seconds and great for Topical information. Bad: Seems to be a little behind in crawling when compared to competitors
Ahrefs: Great for deep down analysis of incoming links. Also has rank tracking which can come in useful. Much quicker to discover links. Discovers links others dont. Also has Outgoing links section which is very useful sometimes.
SEMRush - Would not do without it. Amazing amount of data. You can spend hours drilling down which helpd discovery of opportunities. So much data! can pull link data directly from Majestic, GSC and analytics. (Ahrefs coming soon little bird tells me). Great for pulling all data in and carrying out accurate and reliable disavows at fraction of time. Cons: EXPENSIVE. Especially if you need more than one license.
Screaming frog - Goes without saying. V10 is particularly interesting although not had time to mess about with it yet.

Few others but those are the main ones.

[Mark_A]

I recently tried some of the free tools on this WebmasterWorld site. Some seemed not to cope with https addresses.