The SEO News Blog from Pat Marcello

I have a few cool plugins for Firefox, but one of my favorites is “Search Status.” Here are some things it does:

• It provides not just Google Page Rank, like the Google Toolbar does, but Alexa ranking of any page you land on as well. And these ranks sit in your lower toolbar and you can see it automatically. You can also see a compete rank and an mozRank, which measures the link juice coming into that site, as well.

When you right click on the Search Status symbol (an @, but with a q in the middle), it will show you the following about any site you visit:

• Highlights “no follow” links. Want to see if a blog is allowing spiders to follow links? Turn this option on and all “no follow” links appear in little pink boxes. You may want to use this when considering the site’s link potential.

• Gives you a link report on. How many are coming in/going out? How many of them are follow links?

• Shows the META tags and description

• Shows what the site looked like historically.

• Gives you robots.txt, whois, and sitemap

• Provides the keyword density and highlights any keyword you choose

• Shows all pages indexed in Google, Yahoo, and MSN (now bing.com)

• Shows the sites linking back in Google, Yahoo, and MSN

So, you can learn much of the SEO data just from this little plugin. Of course, some of it overlaps with the data you get from SEO Quake, but I think you really need both plugins to have a fully functional SEO browser. I mean, there are other SEO add-ons for Firefox, but these are 2 I couldn’t do without.

And if you want a firm foundation in SEO, visit http://SpiderLanguage.com

Over at Shoemoney’s blog today, he posted his favorite Firefox extensions. You can check them out here:

http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/03/10/11-must-have-firefox-extensions/

I have to agree with him on most of them. But I have a list of my own:

Fasterfox: Makes firefox run just a little faster

Firefox Bookmarks Synchronizer: This is great, if you’re going from desktop to laptop and vice versa.

IE Tab: Very cool for developers. You can see things in both browsers, which we sometimes forget to check and then our pages look wanky in one browser or the other. (Usually not Firefox, but the Other)

SEOQuake: Allows you to see what’s what with any web page, including the three big search engines’ pages indexed, backlinks, page rank, Whois, Age, Alexa, and a bunch of stuff.

Tab Mix Plus: Lets you move your tabs around and all kind of stuff you can’t do without it.

Having all these awesome extensions makes Firefox the best browser on the planet.

Anyway, you can search for them all at: https://addons.mozilla.org

Wow. I remember when Firefox was new and nobody wanted to use it. Me. OK. Me.

I went kicking and screaming into Firefox on a dare. Someone (I don’t remember who) told me to try it for 7 days and if I didn’t like it, well…

Like it? Hmm… That’s a bit mild. I adore Firefox! In fact, if it was a man, I’d marry Firefox. OK… That’s a little too weird. But…

Not only is it more secure, it’s so customizable. Firefox has a bunch of totally cool add-ons that you can use, especially if you’re into SEO. So, let me tell you which ones I use and you can check them out when you’re getting Firefox (because I know you’ll want to after this, right? LOL):

Search Status: Gives you Google PageRank, Alexa Ranking, and Compete ranking for every site you land on, right there on your lower toolbar.

SEO Quake: This is my favorite add-on of all. Puts all the info (number of links, pages indexed, page rank) from the top 3 SEs (Google, Yahoo, MSN), the Alexa Ranking, Date of Origin, Whois, and much more right at your finger tips. Works with Google search results as well as individual pages. This one really rocks! Trust me. Just download it. You’ll love it. Just be sure that your Firefox version is up to date. Downnload the most recent version of Firefox first.

StumbleUpon Toolbar: If you’re a blogger, you can’t afford not to see the power in Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites. StumbleUpon is one of the bigger and better sites in Cyberworld.

Tab Mix Plus: Gives you the ability to do more with your tabs than Firefox naked. You can order tabs the way you like, for instance, and with session manager, you can decide if you want the same tabs to open when you re-open your browser.

CoolIris: Lets you preview a web page before you go to the trouble of opening it in another tab. So, let’s say, you just want to check out a link or that you have to go back and forth from link to originating page. CoolIris is great.

FasterFox: Just gives Firefox a little extra power. Think of it like adding STP to your browser.

Forecast Fox: For keeping an eye on the weather, something important here in Florida between June and December. (Hurricane season, my friends.)

Foxmarks Synchronizer: This one’s awesome for syncing your desktop and your laptop’s Firefox bookmarks. This add-on just runs in the background, which is totally cool, or you can force it to sync. I love this feature. When I go to my laptop, I know that whatever I need is going to be there. Wish they’d come up with something like this for RoboForm. I know there’s RoboFormtoGo, but it’s just not the same. There’s too much work. I love my bookmarks being there and just wish my passwords could be, too.

IETab: If you’re like me, when you design a site, you may forget that it may not look the same in IE as it does in Firefox. (I do that all the time. “Pat, why does the blog look all wanky?” Pat rolls her eyes. Duh.. “I forgot to check it in IE.” Not no more!) This plug-in allows you to check what your page looks like in both browsers without opening IE, too. Awesome!

I have a few more, but these are my faves. If you have a favorite Firefox Add-On, I’d love to know about it! Just post a comment and I’ll try it out, report on what I’ve found, and rate it here!

But the bottom line is like…

Firefox rules!