If you have been following web trends even a little you know that search engine optimization (SEO) is near the top of the list of crucial topics for serious webmasters. SEO has pushed the idea of metrics. Nowhere is the old saw, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” more apparent than in advice given by web ranking experts. Advanced Web Ranking by Caphalon Software is the premier tool on the Mac to measure website performance.

As with many programs there are free alternatives, mostly websites that provide one feature at a time. Those are great but it’s even more helpful to have all your tools and metrics in one place. Advanced Web Ranking offers a host of tools to let you know just how well your site is doing in the ranking race.

It supports both the Google and Yahoo api’s to give you metrics on these two vital search engines, searching for multiple keywords at once. That’s one real advantage of a product like this. It saves a lot of time.

The other advantage is that Advanced Web Ranking sorts your data into reports that make spotting trends and comparing keyword campaigns easy and obvious. What good is data if you can’t have it in an easily readable form?

If you want to track a SEO campaign on the Mac this is the only real professional grade tool around.

It’s relatively easy to use. Documentation is good. If you work behind a corporate firewall, Advanced Web Ranking will tunnel through. It supports an unlimited number of projects. And if you get the Pro version, you can export your reports to a wide array of formats.

What’s not to like? Well, this program is written Java, which makes it a bit slow and look a bit clunky. That’s the price we have to pay to use a cross-platform program like this. Still, that is a minor quibble Advanced Web Ranking is the only Mac game in town. Fortunately, it is at the top of the list in its field. There is a 30 day trial. Give it a spin.

If SEO is important for your site, you will make your life a lot easier by using Advanced Web Ranking.

Publisher: Cayphon
Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.4 or later

Features: 4
Value: 4
Documentation: 4
Macness: 2
Ease of Use: 3

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 9:08 am and is filed under Software Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.