SEO SpyGlass is an advanced competition research tool designed to let you see exactly how your competitors got to the top in major search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN. It does so by researching all the backlinks that point to your competitor's site, and analyzing them using dozens of SEO factors.
Once SEO SpyGlass reveals the complete linking profile of your competitors to you, you can then use this information to your advantage to create your own linking strategy and get to Top 10 yourself.
Creating A New Competition Research Project
When you first run SEO SpyGlass, it will automatically pop up a Wizard that will guide you through the process of creating a new competition research project. You can also open this screen by clicking the "New" button on the main toolbar.This is how the screen will look:
You can let SEO SpyGlass find your competitor for you by entering a keyword related to your niche.
Or, you can enter a competitor's URL yourself and proceed to the next step. The URL you specify here can be your competitor's homepage, or any other Webpage on your competitor's site.
Important Note: Please make sure that the URL you specify here starts with http://.
On Step 2 of the Wizard, you need to choose the search engines to use. Depending on the choice you make, SEO SpyGlass will use specific search engines to collect and analyze your competitor's Incoming Backlinks.
For optimum results, we recommend you choose as many search engines as possible. If for whatever reason you need to pick one, choose Yahoo!. Unlike Google, Yahoo! will show most of your competitor's backlinks.
Once you click "Next", SEO SpyGlass will go to work and collect all the search engines data on your competitor so that you can analyze it later.
On Step 3 of the Wizard, SEO SpyGlass will gather Incoming Backlink data on your competitor. Just sit back and relax while SEO SpyGlass is working. The process can take a while depending on how many search engines you selected, how many backlinks your competitor has, and the speed of your Internet connection.
You can interrupt the process at any time and still be able to proceed to the next step, as long as at least one backlink has been analyzed.
On Step 4, simply click the "Finish" button to proceed to the main SEO SpyGlass screen where you can analyze the collected data.
Or, you can click "Cancel" to discard the current competition research project and start over.
Analyzing Your Competitor's Linking Profile And Viewing Reports
This is the main SEO SpyGlass window presenting the analysis summary of your competitor's backlink profile:
Now that all this search engines data has been collected and processed, just click the "Report" button and SEO SpyGlass will open your personal SEO Success Blueprint Report:
Or, you can click the "Analyze" button to view an advanced technical report on any of your competitor's backlinks.
You can hold down CTRL (or CMD on a Mac version) and/or SHIFT keys to select multiple backlinks, and then click "Analyze". You can also hit CTRL-A to easily select all of them.
If no backlinks are selected, SEO SpyGlass will assume you need to analyze all the backlinks when you press the "Analyze" button.
Here's a quick overview of all the columns available by default in the main SEO SpyGlass window:
- Search Engine
This is the search engine that you SEO SpyGlass used to retrieve the backlink data. - Backlink Page
This is the exact URL of the Webpage that is linked back to your competitor's URL. - Webpage PR
This is the Google PageRank of the Webpage that is linked back to your competitor's URL. - Title
This is the exact title of the Webpage that is linked back to your competitor's URL. - Links Back
This shows you if the Webpage is still linked back to your competitor. If a page is not linked back, this probably means the link has been removed, but the search engine doesn't know that yet, because the index has not been updated. - Anchor Text
This is the exact anchor text of the Webpage that is linked back to your competitor's URL. - Anchor URL
This is the anchor URL if the backlink. This shows you exactly where the backlink points. - Outbound Links
This is the number of outbound links on the Webpage with your competitor's backlink. The fewer outbound links a Webpage has, the greater value a backlink has. - Total Links
This is the total number of links on the Webpage with your competitor's backlink. This is calculated as the number of outbound links plus the links to the internal pages of the site with the backlink. - Links Value
This is an approximate calculation of the value each backlink brings, based on the original PageRank formula. - Domain
This is the domain that contains the backlink to your competitor. - IP Address
This is the IP address of the site that contains the backlink to your competitor. - Domain PR
This is the Google PageRank value of the domain that contains the Webpage linked back to your competitor's URL. - DMOZ
This shows you if a site linking back to your competitor is listed in DMOZ. - Yahoo!
This shows you if a site linking back to your competitor is listed in the Yahoo! Directory. - Alexa Rank
This is the Alexa Rank of the site linking back to your competitor. This gives you a rough traffic estimate of the site. - Domain Age
This is the age of the site that is linked back to your competitor.
Viewing Incoming Backlink Details
When you select the backlinks you wish to analyze and click the "Analyze" button, SEO SpyGlass will open the "Incoming Backlink Details" window presenting an analysis summary of the backlinks you've chosen previously:
Here's a quick explanation of all the tabs you can see here:
- Keywords
The Keywords column shows all the keywords found within the titles and anchors of all the links pointing to your competitor's URL. The Tile Density and Anchor Density columns show the respective percentage values. - Anchor Text
The Anchor Text tab allows you to see at a glance the exact anchors of all your competitor's backlinks. This is different from the Keywords tab, which shows separate keywords within the anchors and titles of the backlinks. - Anchor URL
The Anchor URL tab shows all the URLs within the anchors of all the links pointing to your competitor's URL. Basically, this shows you the exact location where the backlinks point. - Webpage PR
The Webpage PageRank tab shows the PageRank values of all the exact links pointing to your competitor's URL. E.g. if your competitor has a backlink of www.some-site.com/some-page.html, this tab will show you the PageRank of this backlink page. - Domain PR
The Domain PageRank tab shows the domain PageRank values of all the links pointing to your competitor's URL. E.g. if your competitor has a backlink of www.some-site.com/some-page.html, this tab will show you the PageRank for www.some-site.com. - Domain
The Domain tab allows you to see at a glance the domains that are linked back to your competitor's URL. E.g. a value of 33% next to a certain domain means 33% of your competitor's backlinks come from the exact same site. This most probably means there's a site-wide link to your competitor. - IP Address
The IP Address tab allows you to see at a glance the IP addresses of all the links pointing to your competitor's URL. E.g. a value of 33% next to a certain IP means 33% of your competitor's backlinks come from the exact same IP address (that is, basically, from the same site.) - DMOZ
The DMOZ Listing tab allows you to see at a glance how many of the links pointing to your competitor's URL are listed in the Open Directory (aka DMOZ.) - Yahoo!
The Yahoo! Listing tab allows you to see at a glance how many of the links pointing to your competitor's URL are listed in the Yahoo! Directory. - Links Back
The Links Back tab allows you to see at a glance if the backlinks returned by the Search Engine really link to your competitor's URL at the time of scan. SEO SpyGlass will not count nofollow links as real backlinks.
Managing Workspaces
Workspaces are a very useful feature of SEO SpyGlass. With it, you can create advanced filters allowing you to unclutter your working area and only view the information you need, when you need it.Notice the little dropdown menu in the top right corner. This is the Workspace Chooser. SEO SpyGlass comes with several preset Workspaces: "Show All Search Engines Factors", "Show SE Factors For Webpage Only", "Show SE Factors For Domain Only", and more. You can also create your own Workspaces or modify the default ones.
You can manage your Workspaces via the "Workspace" button next to the Workspace Chooser. Simply click the button, and SEO SpyGlass will display the "Manage Workspaces" window:
Here you can add, remove, edit and move the available Workspaces up or down.
To add a new Workspace, click the "Add" button, and SEO SpyGlass will display the "Add Workspace" window:
Specify a name for your new Workspace, add the columns you wish to include into it, and add new filtering conditions if necessary. When you are done, click "OK".
Configuring Proxy Settings
To access proxy configuration in SEO SpyGlass, choose "Preferences > Proxy Settings..." from the navigation menu.
If you are using a direct Internet connection, you don't need to configure your proxy settings. However, if you are behind a proxy server, you need to specify your proxy address, port, username and password. Please contact your network administrator to obtain this information.
Using Google And Yahoo! APIs
SEO SpyGlass fully supports both Google and Yahoo! API keys.These keys make sure you never violate Google or Yahoo! policies, but also limit the number of searches you can perform using these search engines.
With Google API, the number of queries you can perform daily using one API key is limited to 1,000. With Yahoo! API, the number of queries is limited to 5,000.
Important Note: As of December 5, 2006, Google stopped issuing new API keys. If you have an existing API key obtained prior to December 5, 2006, you should not be affected. For more information please visit:
http://code.google.com/apis/soapsearch/api_faq.html.
If you wish to use a Google or Yahoo! API key within SEO SpyGlass, select "Preferences > Search Engines Settings..." from the navigation menu.
Simply copy and paste your existing API key here, or create a new one using the "Create Yahoo! Account" link.
How To Copy The Data To A Spreadsheet
To copy your data to a spreadsheet, follow these easy steps:- Select the entries you wish to copy. You can hold down CTRL (or CMD on a Mac version) and/or SHIFT keys to select multiple entries.
- Right-click and select "Copy To Clipboard", or simply hit CTRL-C (or CMD-C on a Mac version).
- Now open a spreadsheet and paste the data.
Voilà! You have successfully transferred your data to your favorite spreadsheet. Now you can easily sort, format or print it.
