Why do I need browser toolbars?
In internet marketing these tools are invaluable when it comes to information and statistics about the website you are on.
Google Toolbar, Alexa Toolbar and SEO Lite Toolbar are my tools.
Google Toolbar
The Google Toolbar for example has a function that tells you what "page rank" the site has. The higher the number the better the the site is ranked in the Google search algorithm. Google keeps track of every website that links to your site and every site that you link too.
If a lot of sites link to you your page rank will be higher. This also helps to boost your search engine ranking too. You will notice that all the sites in the returns for a particular search term have a high page rank. Usually a green bar of 4 or better on a scale of 1 to 10. So you want to get those incoming links. The more green you see the better.
Also a score of less than 4 and some websites will not exchange links with you. So if a site has a white or grey page rank bar it means the site has no links to it or has not been ranked yet. It could also be that Google has penalized that site for any number of reasons it considers unacceptable.
For example I have several sites that I interlinked with each other but did not get other outside links and the page rank fell to zero. I guess that was a no no :) I think it looked like a link farm and not a natural linking structure that would have more out going and incoming links. Either way those site still make me money from search results so Google is not the only game in town.
Anyway the Google Toolbar is invaluable as you start to work on your own link exchange program. I sell the best ebook money can buy on this topic. Power Linking 2005 Put it on your list of must read ebooks because it will change everything.
Alexa Toolbar
The Alexa search engine keeps track of traffic and ranks your site based on that. There are millions of Alexa Toolbar users and the toolbar gathers data the sites it's users go too. This information is displayed in the toolbar as a ranking of between 1 and 6 million.
So if you have a rank of 3,323,253 you don't get much traffic. If you have a 200,000 you get a lot of traffic. and if you have a 3, your GOOGLE, and if a 1 your YAHOO! So using this toolbar you can see how much traffic the site you are on gets.
So say your on a website thinking of purchasing a widget. If that site has an Alexa rank 167,000 and another site selling the same widget has a rank of 1,756,578. In this case the site with the 167,000 has a more appealing reputation base on the traffic score
Human nature maybe but which one would you buy from? Image is everything!
Alexa Toolbar also shows you other sites that people visited that visited the site your on. Very usefull in finding just the right website for your needs.
SEO Lite Toolbar
This little baby let's you search several engines. Just type in your search and it gives Google returns, select the Yahoo from the drop down menu and you get Yahoo. Same with MSN, DMOZ and so on.
But this toolbar also has a few nice little extras. You can see how many pages are indexed from the site you are on. Also you can see back links. Those sites that are linking to the site you are on. Nice tool for finding link partners. Just see who is linking to your competition and chances are good that they will link to you too. :)
So that's my little rant on the toolbars. You should get them all right now. They are free and they will improve your overall surfing experience and open a strange new world to your browser. Oh almost forgot, these only work with Internet Explorer 'IE' But who doesn't have that installed?
Take Care,
Tom Willingham
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