There are many different tools out there for SEO’s to use on a website. Each one has different features and benefits depending on how you use them.

That’s why TopRank provides SEO Tool Reviews from time to time. We showcase different tools that you may or may not know about. Some free, some paid, all good.

The basis of this SEO tool review is Firefox. “Firefox a SEO tool”, you say? Alone, Firefox is not an SEO tool, but there are many extensions and toolbars that can be added to Firefox to extend it’s possibilities past basic web browsing.

What makes Firefox so great?

• It’s free.

• It’s secure. If a security issue comes up, the Firefox team plugs it in just a few days.

• It works on Windows, Mac and Linux. Each version with the same features and functionality.

• It has a large developer network creating extensions. Most extensions are platform independent too.

• It is what you want it to be. Between extensions and themes, the user can build a browser that does what they want. It is really all about you.
If you don’t already have Firefox installed, go grab it! As for extending Firefox with SEO plugins, here is a list of 11 tools we either use or have tested with descriptions from Lee:

• SEOpen - 23 different metrics from back links on Yahoo and Google to Archived pages, whois and checking robots.txt.

• SEO For Firefox -Aaron Wall’s clever and configurable tool with 13 different signals ranging from domain age and Page Rank to del.icio.us bookmark and .edu inbound links.

• yExplore - Thomas’ handy tool offering easy right click access to Yahoo Site Explorer info.

• Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools including the ability to disable JavaScript, images, and CSS to see what a page looks like in a text browser or for robots.

• SeoQuake - Interesting tool for analyzing search results and various parameters that may influence SEO. Work can be saved for future reference or comparison to subsequent measurements. Don’t overdo it or you’re in trouble.

• KGen -Keyword generator analyzes a page for keyword frequency and placement. Also offers transfer to clipboard for use when tagging bookmarks.

• Niche Watch Tool - Checks back links, indexed pages, keyword frequency and several other SEO signals.

• MetaTags - Offers a side bar menu showing a web page’s meta data, links, keyword frequency and others.

• Search Status - Highlights nofollow links, back links, indexed pages, Alexa and Compete rankings.

• Prefbar - Toggle JavaScript, Flash and images as well as spoof user agent.

What are your favorite Firefox addons for SEO?

Simcity Societies - Review by Dream Master from the ZoomCities IT Community

Are you considering purchasing Simcity Societies? DON’T DO IT!

ahem…. let me rephrase that. Are you a fan of the Simcity series like I am and then fell for all of Electronic Art’s hype on the newest Simcity and bought the game? If the answer is no, then please go buy the game now so that I can ridicule you. On the other hand if the answer was yes then, RUN don’t walk to the nearest lawyer and demand retribution and justice!

hmmmm, alright alright, this is a review after all. Where to start.

The Good
The box! It looks like Simcity, it smells like Simcity, it even tastes like Simcity. (This is the last good thing you will hear about Simcity Societies in this review)

The Bad

The Install! If you actually get past this part you are one of the few who succeeded! … I did

The Startup! If you actually get it to start up you are one of the few of the few who got it to install to get it to start. … again I did. (sigh)

The game!
- the short version - What the (Bleepin) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleepin Bleep) is this (Bleep)!! (Bleep)!!!

- the long version - It sure the heck ain’t by Maxis, and it is not Simcity! This piece of trash is nothing but blocks. There is no challenge, no reason, no nothing. All you do is plant homes, buildings, and odds and ends. They don’t develop, they don’t do anything but sit there and look pretty. EA claims this is more of a mayoral simulator than the “god” simulator the others were. It is quite (Bleep) the opposite! Simcity, Simcity 2000, Simcity 3000, and especially Simcity 4 are great games where you are a mayor fulfilling the needs of a city in order to achieve results. Simcity Societies you are a god developing your own world. You want 20 workers, stick a house down. Want them to work in an office, stick a building down. You don’t even have to build roads, you can stick a house in one corner of the map and a work place in another, and a nightclub in another, and just stick down a subway entrance. No tunnels, no electricity, no pipes and no roads.

I almost agree with all of the people I read asking for class action lawsuits over this farce of a game. It is shameful to slap the Simcity name on it, and this piece of trash is so blatantly pointless a cat could go to sleep on the keyboard and play it.

The so called achievements in the game probably would not even please a new born baby. If you got the simoleans you just keep adding buildings with no commerce, industry or residential concerns at all and you get every achievement without even caring about it.

Even the so called game patches to add difficulty to the game, all it changed was how fast you can do everything by slowing down the income.

Aside from the meaningless gameplay, the game is horribly programmed. It uses up so much memory that even 4 gb systems can run out of memory after some time. The graphics are slow even on high end systems because of memory leaks and poor programming. They did build in an autosave feature that saves very frequently because the game is going to crash a lot. It was never stable so they instituted this frequent autosave system.

The Ugly
Do yourself a favor if you intend to buy this game. Look at the pretty box, then put it back on the shelf.

Then go to http://myminicity.com/ and applaud the quality of this javascript based simcity over the farce Simcity Societies. (My Mini City is a simcity like script that all you do is visit it once a day.) My minicity is http://merkamanost.myminicity.com/

Go make your own for the fun of it, no sign ups or anything, just a curious oddity.

Garmin makes GPS devices. Garmin makes navigation software and accessories for cell phones and smartphones. Garmin makes cell phones…wait, what? Yep, you read right. Today, the GPS manufacturer took the wraps off its first smartphone at a press event in New York: the Garmin Nuvifhone. It’s a GSM/HSDPA mobile that runs on Garmin’s own operating system and focuses on, no surprise, navigation. The device will come preloaded with maps of North America (or Eastern or Western Europe for all our international readers) and points of interest. In addition, it offers turn-by-turn voice directions, Google Local Search integration, and Garmin’s “Where I am?” safety feature, which displays your coordinates, closest address and intersection, and nearby emergency services.

The Garmin Nuvifone also features a 3.5-inch touch screen, a Web browser, and e-mail capabilities. It’s multimedia-friendly with MP3/ACC/MPEG4 support and a built-in camera/camcorder. It also has access to Google’s Panoramio picture sharing site, where can search through geo-located photos. The Nuvifone will be available some time in the third-quarter, but no specifics on dates or pricing. We’re still getting details on this smartphone and will report them to you as they come in but any initial thoughts?

8 things I hate about Facebook

1. The Name: I mean how in the world did they come up with the name Facebook. I guess Mark(the founder) was one time checking out his high school year book reminiscing the past by looking at the faces of his friends and mates. Then suddenly he came up with this great idea of putting an online profile students gallery, he couldn’t think of a name for it so he looked at the year book once again and browse all the faces in every page hoping to get inspired from the faces and looks of all the students there..

So after reaching the last page of the yearbook, he finally came up with the word Facebook? Who knows.. Who cares..

2. The Theme: Blue is probably the most commonly used color on the net, you want proof, check out the websites of large groups like Google, Microsoft, Paypal, MSN, MySpace, Wikipedia, Blogger, hell even my Windows XP theme is blue.. Can’t Facebook use another color?? Let say, Red, Yellow, Orange.. Red Orange, Yellow Orange, Yellow Red… I guess thats the secret to a website’s success.. A blue theme.. So I am calling everyone’s attention to change their website’s theme to Blue.. Lets go..

3. Facebook’s Favourite Icon:
Has Facebook ran out of idea or what? Have you seen its website’s favourite icon?
It looks almost exactly like the old Macromedia now Adobe Flash Icon, except the F
on the flash  icon is a bit curvy and more stylish/modern. I wonder who in Facebook
came up with this idea?! If you are reading this, facebook favourite icon maker, come up with something better OK..

4. Super Poke! Isn’t it annoying getting superpoked everyday every hour? The first time I was super poked it was by a lady friend of mine, I got a message “Courteney has hugged Zac” and I was  like, “Hmm, I have a feeling this chick likes me..” the next day I was super poked again by the same friend, the message was “Courteney has kissed Zac” I was surprised! I thought, “Hooo.. this chick wants me badd…” then to my disappointment, I received the same message from another friend named Robert, then there goes the story of how I found out what Super Poke really is.. Damn you Super Poke! Stop flooding my Super Duper Poke Board!

5. Status Update: Oh this is really giving me the sheets.. Everytime I logged in or go in the Facebook Homepage I always see new Status Updates of my friends in the right sidebar. What annoys me is, the content of every updates and its duration gap.. Let say for example: “Glenda is so excited about going to Hawaii” Updated 2 mins ago… then 10 mins later “Glenda is looking forward to her trip to Hawaii” … 1 hour later “Glenda is asking everyone whats the best place to visit in hawaii“.. Oh for Glenda’s sake!! Someone pay attention to her Status Update and drop her a quick Wall Message to shut up…

6. Applications: There are so many crappy applications, let me tell ya! Most of them bores me out of hell.. Who wants to be a warewolf or a vampire? Who wants to pet a monkey that runs 100kph while scratching his head.. Who wants to have a carebear photo in their profile! I mean, these are all for young kids, how professional can you get? But if you are thinking “Zac, if its for young kids and you dont like it why are you using it.!” Well.. well.. what ever you’re thinking or saying I dont really care.. Even those carebears dont freaking care…..

7. The Ads! Most of them are irrelevant, like this one.. “Snoring bothering you?” Facebook Ads is asking me the question… But how would I know that I snore when I’m sound asleep? And I ain’t paying for any snoring product for a friend or for anyone.. If they snore, its their problem not mine.. Come on Facebook, come up with some useful ads.. Not these crappy ones..

8. The Losers on Facebook: Those who published all their wacky photos in Facebook without knowing that they loose ownership of it. Losers..

If you hate something about Facebook, feel free to post a comment.. 

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it’s worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the <title> and </title> portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. Hence it is better to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the customer initiating a search.

There are basically two types of search engines. The first is by robots called crawlers or spiders.

Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site’s Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so don’t create a site with 500 pages!

The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine. A spider is almost like a book where it contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.

Example: Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Google.

When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.

One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page, but it can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. Then the algorithms analyze the way that pages link to other pages in the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about, if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.

More Games in the ZoomCities Forum!