This is a guest post byPerri Blake Gorman aka @bethebutterflyPerri is an expat living in Hong Kong, connector of experts, Twitter passionista, social media trainer and consultant, blogger, environmentalist, lover of children & animals, & citizen of the world.

Right now Foursquare is in a major growth phase with new users joining at a rapid rate and the availability rolling out in cities around the world.

People are getting on board, becoming Mayors, unlocking badges and vying for top of the leaderboard.

Ok – first for all of you out there that still don’t know about Foursquare, it is ok.   It is very simple to understand and get going.

You can find this section on the help menu of Foursquare.com.  Each phone has a detailed page of how to download the application and how to adjust phone settings if necessary.

Considerations & Room For Improvement

Invitations:

How many of us really “know” the people we meet on Twitter? We are essentially out there making Foursquare friends with strangers as people sync their Twitter with their Foursquare.  I know: Only accept people you know, but this is realistically not what is happening because of the invitation system.  I can see this becoming an issue somewhere down the line.  “Woman Gets Stalked Via Foursquare” is not a difficult headline to foresee.  I have done a bit of browsing of profiles on Foursquare, and like the way people have opened up Facebook to strangers, by the sheer volume of friends you can imagine it is a result of just syncing with Twitter.

I think if you meet people and add them to Foursquare it is really useful  (if you can actually find them on the database).  You get all of their information all at once: Facebook, Twitter, email, or whatever information they have logged into the system. While I am not using that aspect to its full potential, Robert Scoble makes some really interesting points about how he is in his blog.

Check-in Reliability & Relevance

Sometimes people check-in after they leave, so Foursquare isn’t always a reliable way of finding your friends.  The status also stays there until they check-in again somewhere else. Tweeting or SMS is a far more reliable way to meet up.  People also have a habit of checking in at the post office, their office, the MTR, or their house.  It kind of kills the point.  The leaderboard and points system drive that kind of behavior.  I can only speak for Hong Kong, but do you really need to be the Mayor of the Ferry Terminal?

Quality of Venue Data

What you put in is what you get out.   It will be sometime before Foursquare is filled in to a high level with accurate information and good tips. Some people put in cool tips about happy hours and deals but I haven’t seen much of that in Hong Kong. Therefore, Foursquare may end up doing very well in some cities and fail in others.

Entering new venues has to be on the top of my “things I hate about Foursquare list”.  Personally I don’t even add new venues anymore because I can’t be bothered.  Forget about check-in, please wait while I enter the name, address, telephone number of this restaurant – “Be right with you guys!”? There are countless mistakes already, including duplicate entries with different capitalization, the wrong name, address, etc.  As a Super User I am allowed to correct these things.  Thank you.

If local users are responsible for entering data are we assuming that it is all going to be in English? What about translation? If I go to Sweden, are all the tips and venues going to be in Swedish? I have already seen venues popping up in Chinese in the Hong Kong database and these are most likely duplications of venues in English.  How will this effect future Mayorships and rewards?

I am curious to see what happens with negative tips.  We have already seen lawsuits based on Twitter comments.  What if you put a comment in Foursquare that you can’t stand a place, the service is terrible or that you saw the chef leave the bathroom without washing his hands? Is that grounds for a lawsuit? After all, it isn’t anonymous. Do you want to spend the money defending yourself in court? Probably best to keep the comments positive for your own protection.

Recording  Precise Whereabouts

Many of us who are active Twitter users are somewhat comfortable with sharing things about our life and whereabouts “out there” that others may still feel a bit uncomfortable with.  I have regretted tweeting my whereabouts many times however, and am still really unsure about the potential downside of doing so.  There is almost no privacy at all on the Foursquare website itself other than hiding your current feed from non-friends.  You can see a person’s friends and you can see where they hold Mayorships even if you are not that person’s friend.  Settings allows some control.

What are the implications of that information being out there and who is going to use it in the future?  Even if you check in OFF the grid, the data is still stored with Foursquare. In the US We have already seen Facebook status updates being accepted as a valid alibi in court cases as well as Facebook photos being used as the basis for criminal convictions.  Speaking to a lawyer friend of mine yesterday he said “The worst thing you can do is record your exact whereabouts on the Internet. It is a potential legal nightmare.”  That said, we do it anyway and hope for the best?

Cheaters

Ok – let’s say this whole thing takes off.  Let’s say venues get on board and Foursquare gets populated.  How is it policed? The minute you start giving things away for free there are going to be cheaters.  I was just at a restaurant the other day and another friend was “checking in” as he walked by.  Now I happen to be the mayor of said restaurant, but he just checks in and keeps going.  That clearly vies for my Mayorship unfairly.  No rewards? No problem? Rewards? Problem.  How “social” will that be when users and venues start having disputes because of cheating and who deserves what?

We ran an experiment on my rooftop last night.  My friends checked into various venues all over Hong Kong that showed up when they logged into Foursquare.  Some were miles away and they didn’t need to be there to check-in.  This is something that is going to have to be dealt with for Foursquare to work in my opinion.  If a new app like PhotoCheck.in (which still has issues finding actual venues) could integrate with Foursquare this could help eliminate or at least reduce cheating.

Upside & Potential:

I understand how people are enthusiastic about Foursquare and that to some it feels like “early Twitter”, but I see it as more of an add-on to Twitter than the “next Twitter”.

Reward Me!

If Foursquare can become a rockin’ reward system on large scale very quickly, then I think there is hope for it to really take off.    In order for that to happen it is going to require the perfect storm of users signing up, users pushing venues to sign-up (or vice-versa), venues putting together interesting rewards, and Foursquare being able to support this globally as a company.  The key words here are globally and quickly.

Just how it isn’t fun to Foursquare alone, it really won’t be much fun unless numerous venues sign up.  It also gets much more interesting for world travel and meeting up with friends in other cities if many cities are populated. Can Foursquare make this happen before interest wanes?

If You Are a Venue: How to Register With Foursquare

It is actually a very simple process to sign your venue up on Foursquare and it is free of charge.  This is where it becomes a no brainer.  It is free advertising.  Restaurants and bars spend a fortune on print and other kinds of advertising, why not promote to your “regulars” and local passersby with Foursquare.?  The pop-up tips are probably one of Foursquare’s coolest features and can lure potential clients to one venue from another near by.  To sign up you can go to http://foursquare.com/businesses/ and see some examples of what others are doing as well.

You are left to fill our a form on your own or contact Foursquare via email to help you with questions.  I have no idea what the turnaround time is on a reply though I am sure they are doing their best.

Last but Certainly Not Least: Check In for Charity

I think Foursquare has huge potential as a way to raise money for charity like Twitter and text messaging have recently.

Regardless of  whether I would use it socially or for rewards, I would certainly check-in for charity.

User Commentary

I wanted to gather some comments from users around the world for this post.  I was actually pretty shocked at how many people were NOT using it.  There were some of my Twitter friends I thought would definitely be on Foursquare that just weren’t.  Some didn’t even know what Foursquare was. I also sadly realize I have no women commentators but all the women I asked to comment either were not on Foursquare or did not come back to me.  Below are the comments of some global users I thought you would appreciate.

Neal Schaffer ~ Windmill Networking

User: 3 Months      Location: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo

Q: Are there rewards programs in your city?  There aren’t any that I know of.  They may be out there, but they haven’t reached out to me yet nor have I found them.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? They should be banned. I promised my Twitter followers I would never tweet a Foursquare location and they should call me on it if I ever do!

Q: What do you love about Foursquare? I love being able to keep up in REAL-TIME and LOCALLY with my network..and that Foursquare goes with me wherever I go around the world!

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement?: iPhone Application is still buggy…A lot of times it won’t find the location even though it’s been registered (despite a refresh).  It often crashes when I select”People” at a Location after Checking In.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? It’s a location-based compliment, nothing more nothing less Foursquare is a compelling location-based application that allows you to physically keep track of where your friends are.  In some ways, it serves what Twitter was created to do.  As more people use Foursquare, it will be interesting to see whether or not it develops into a different entity like the Twitter platform has.

Jonathan Nfarrette ~ http://jonathannafarrete.com

User: 7 months              Location: Los Angeles & Travel

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? I have seen notifications for rewards sometimes when I check in, but I haven’t really payed much attention to them yet.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? I actually do not mind location tweets, I always enjoy seeing where others I am following checkin and also what other Twitter users they checkin with at the same location.

Q: What do you love about Foursquare? By far my favorite use for Foursquare is when I go to a party or conference and I can check to see if my other friends have already checked in. I don’t mind the badges and mayorships, but that is not why I use Foursquare.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? No hangups really, quite excited to see additional features and benefits in the works.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? Foursquare is not the next Twitter, but it is a great addition to the growing number of ways that everyone can use and share information on Twitter. Foursquare will continue to add value within the hyper-local marketing space and draw greater attention to location based social gaming. I honestly think we have yet to see the full potential of how marketers can utilize the platform and how the Foursquare community can receive additional benefits of letting everyone know what places they are visiting.

Things we can expect from a marketers point of view:
Continuation of sponsored badges for events and venues as well as limited badges.
Partnerships with traditional media (Radio, TV, and Print) in order to extend promotions and marketing further. Ex: Announcer on radio talks about concert event on radio, first 100 people who checkin to the club get a limited badge, badge = reward of some sort.  Scavenger hunts, clues are given as pop ups when you checkin.
Charity checkins?

Nic Tinworth                 http://www.nictinworth.com

User: 3 Months            Location: Hong Kong

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? None of the chains or independent venues here have caught on to Foursquare hype yet, but hopefully this will change soon. All it will take is one venue to launch a successful rewards program for incumbent mayors and everyone will jump on the bandwagon. That’s the Hong Kong way!

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? Perfect for Twitter – annoying for Facebook, but if you are one of those people that checks-in to anything every 100m that you walk, then please, just turn the bloody location tweets off.

Q: What do you love about Foursquare? I’m probably one of the few people using it here that really get a kick out of the tips features. I’ve discovered a few great new venues thanks to them. Of course it’s fun being the mayor of places too, but I’m over checking in to every single place I go to.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? GPS check-ins (a la gowalla) would prevent a lot of the venue check-in ‘cheating’ that goes on. The iphone UI is also pretty basic and could do with some subtle enhancements and a bit of a UX overhaul.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? I don’t think so. It will certainly be one of the Geo-location companies, but the race is on to see who will regin supreme in the Foursquare vs Gowalla vs Loopt vs Yelp vs Brightkite vs MyTown battle.

Timothy Poisal Hair on the Side

User: 1 month              Location: Baltimore, DC, Annapolis

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? There are venues that offer rewards, but I haven’t been able to use them yet.  Wish there were more though!

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? I love the location tweets, it’s more interactive, and it has created buzz about what you do in REAL life.  So yeah it’s really cool!

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? I wish there was more detail about badges, you are just kinda rewarded them, you don’t know what other ones there are.  Wish that when you logged into a place Foursquare would alert the business that people are using it there, that way they would get more businesses in on it!

Willis Wee               Penn Olson

User: 2 months     Location: Singapore

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs?  Not in Singapore yet.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? Hmmm.. it’s pretty cool but has yet to be fully utilized

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? They are doing a pretty good job. What’s left is for users to adopt this new technology.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? Yes. If businesses start using it. (Willis’s blog post: Businesses Can Help Foursquare Thrive)

Faisal Qureshi        http://www.fqnow.com

User: 1 month           Location: Pakistan

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? None.  Foursquare just opened up for the global cities.

Q: What do you love about Foursquare?
Eventually… the fact that a visitor to a city could get a lot of insight about what’s available.  In my own comfort geography I can add a lot of information, but as soon as I’m out of my own zone, other people’s input would be of great value to me.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement?

The mobile interface (I’m usin iPhone) needs a lot of tweaking before any of s features could be of use.  However, the concept itself bears great potential.  An anonymous limited profile look up of people within a venue’s range would surely help.

The iPhone interface is kind of clumsy. Lacks a few things.  I don’t see how badges are of any use.  I have seen “go off the grid” in the help of FS, but can’t figure out how to do it on the mobile app.  I can’t find how to auto-tweet or auto-FB when I check-in to a venue.  I need to be able to check-out as well, or better yet, I should be auto-checked-out.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? I don’t want to have to bite my own words, but I don’t think so.  Not unless it starts getting integrated into existing twiter apps.  Twitter didn’t happen until all these apps came out for it.  Nor will foursquare.  Just my two cents.

Calvin Lee~   http://mayhemstudios.com/blog/
User 5 months        Location: Los Angeles

Q. How long have you been using FourSquare? I’ve been using FourSquare for about 4 or 5 months now. I like it, it’s fun and lets me see what my friend are up to.

Q. What city are you using it in? I’m using it in Los Angeles.

Q. Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? FourSquare is still pretty new. Businesses haven’t really caught onto the benefits of bringing in more customers with freebies or discounts on their goods or services yet. I’ve only seen one or two offered at ventues I’ve been to. It would be great if they really rewarded good customers with goodies. The offerings they have now are pretty weak.

Q. How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? I’m OK with people knowing my location, it’s a great way to connect with friends (new/old). Helps others to check out ventures I’ve been to, they might like. I know many women feel uncomfortable tweeting their locations. They either don’t tweet it out or check-in when they are leaving the ventue.

Q. What do you love about Foursquare? I love the badges and mayorships I get on foursquare, it’s fun. It’s also cool to discover new restaurants and ventues my friends checked out.

Q. Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? It’s a hassle FourSquare doesn’t have a database of all the ventures. Many ventures I’ve been to isn’t listed. I would have to manually enter adresss and all information. I would like to see maybe a instant messenger to contact friends if they are close by the ventue.

Q. Is Foursquare the next Twitter? I don’t see it, unless they have built-in features and tools like on all the Twitter third party apps that are out now. They need more ventues/businesses to jump on the bandwagon. Every place should have some reward program.

Kaz Zamri

User: 2 months Location: Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. In the near future i foresee using in Singapore, Bangkok & Jakarta

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? No. Not yet but looking forward to it.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? Adds a little flair and edge to Twitter. I have bumped into people because of their location tweets. However too much of it can be annoying/distracting. I only include Foursquare tweets on locations that I really like to share with others.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? Hangups: Too open to abuse/cheats Improvement: photo tags would be awesome.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? No, but like I mentioned earlier the two definitely compliment each other.

Please share your experiences with us about Foursquare in the comments

Similar Posts:

• 13 Tips for Getting More ReTweets
• 10 Examples of Creative Twitter Uses
• 5 Social Media Sites that you must explore
• The Most Effective Approach to Contacting Link Partners for Authoritative Links
• Social Voting Madness! (Reader Poll Included)

There are hundreds, if not thousands of different ways you can acquire links. Every link buildling tactic comes with pros and cons. I have found that the most effective way to build links is by taking the time to build relationships with experts in your industry, than to just dropping a link in a directory or forum. I understand this is a time intensive process and it requires a lot more work, but the end result are highly relevant, authoritative links. Below is a step by step process to effectively approach potential link partners.

Follow this 4 step process:

1. Make a Potential Link Partner List

If you read industry blogs, than you probably have a pretty good idea who the major influencers are in the industry. Start by generating a list of potential experts/bloggers you would like to contact. Take note of their blog (if they have one), what sites they contribute to, and any social media sites they engage in.

2. Start Following Them

Before you even begin contacting anyone, start following them. If they are on Twitter, start following them. Pay attention to what they tweet about, who they tweet about, who they are tweeting with, and pay attention to their style/personality.

If they manage or contribute to a blog, sign up for their RSS feed and being reading recent and upcoming posts. Start to understand their style of writing, how often they blog, and what topics they cover.

If they use social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, start following their bookmarks. See what type of sites interest them. Find out if they have other types of passions besides just the industry you are in. You may be able to connect with someone on a deeper level (similar intersts, location, background, experience).

3. Join their Discussions

Start by retweeting some of your potential link partners tweets. This can help you to indirectly get in front of them and start building the foundation for a relationship. Find recent blog post they have written and start writing comments of value. If you have a relevant link to a resource on your personal site or blog, then provide that as well. This may encourage the person to visit your site and again helps in building the relationship.

4. Contact Them By E-mail

Once you have joined in the discussions, you are ready to contact them personally. By now you should have a pretty good idea of their interests, their online personality, and where they engage online.

When e-mailing them keep it short and to the point. Odds are the person you are contacting gets lots of e-mail pitches a day so don’t waste their time. Hopefully by engaging with them indirectly (tweets, comments, etc..) they will make a connection when they see your e-mail request.

In your e-mail you want to relate to them on a professional or personal level. It may be as simple as telling them how you have been a loyal reader of their blog and hope much you enjoy it. I think this is a good time to say that you should be honest with the people you are contacting. If you geniuenly want to build relationships and make friends in the industry, it will show!

When writing your e-mail, do not just send a generic e-mail template, they will be able to tell right away and will not want to read the rest. Take the time to mention their website, blog, a recent tweet, a speaking engagement, an award they won, a book they wrote, etc…

Keep Components of the E-Mail:

• Be Geniune & Honest
• Compliment them on their Site/Blog
• Mention Something Specific You Like
• Briefly Explain Your Expertise and Site (include URL)
• Offer Something of Value to Them
• Thank Them for their Time

Example:

Dear ‘First Name’,

My name is ‘insert name here’. I am contacting you to tell you what a huge fan and avid reader I am of your ‘Blog Name’ blog. Your ’specific post name’ post was exteremly helpful in successfully growing my ’site/blog’.

The reason I am contacting you is because I am interested in building relationships with ‘bloggers/professionals’ in the ‘industry name’ industry. I have been working on promoting my ’site/blog’ and want to connect with professionals that have the same passions and interests. My blog covers ‘insert topics’.

I would love to share my expertise by having the opportunity to write a guest post for your blog. Also, I thought you may be interested in an ‘ebook/whitepaper/article’ I wrote ‘Insert link here’ that normally I charge for, but would like to offer you a free copy.

If interested, I would love to talk more about how I could help provide valuable content for your blog and readership, while also helping to spread the word about my ’site/blog’. Thanks for your time and I hope to hear back soon.

Feel free to contact me via email, phone, or twitter.

‘Insert Name’

‘Insert Twitter Handle’

‘Insert Blog URL’

‘Insert Phone #’

Of course you may need to customize the email based on who you are contacting. Instead of offering a free ebook, you may be able to give them a free trial of your product or offer a discount on your product to the persons readers.

Even if you do not end up receiving a link from their site or the opportunity to contribute to their site/blog, at least you made them aware of who you are. At a minimum they may sign up for your RSS feed or start following you on Twitter. Down the road they may remember that you contacted them a while back and they may contacting you to ask if you are still interested in writing a guest post.

About The Author

Mark is the Internet Marketing Manager for Atlantic BT, a full-service Web Design & Marketing company, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also is the creator of StayOnSearch, a search marketing blog dedicated to SEO’s and Internet Marketing professionals.

Follow Mark on Twitter (@m_thompson)

Similar Posts:

• How To Get Backlinks From Optimal Link Targets
• Are You Stumbling Yet?
• Why Guest Blogging Is An Ideal Link Building Strategy
• Learn How Google Robots View and Index Your Site
• 5 Social Media Sites that you must explore

Thanks to a recent feature story in Entrepreneur magazine, ghost Tweeting has once again become a hotly debated subject. So, I thought I’d throw in my $.02 on the subject.

Note: For those who don’t know, ghost Tweeting is when you hire someone else to Tweet under your name.

• It goes against the whole point of social media—Call me crazy, but isn’t the whole point of social media to be, umm, social? Social media is about interacting, building relationships, getting to know one another, and just being yourself. Now, if someone else is Tweeting under your personal name, doesn’t that violate all of this? It’s like when a 50 year old fat guy in a chat room pretends to be a 21 year old blonde chick. Not cool, man.
• It can distort the brand image—Celebrities and high-profile execs are usually the ones who hire people to ghost Tweet for them, and I get it. They’re busy. The last thing they have time for is to Tweet all day, but they also want to build their brand and keep their name out there. However, I think this is a bit dangerous and can easily backfire. Even if the ghost writer is good at capturing your exact tone and personality, there’s no way they can know the celeb’s thoughts on every subject they Tweet about. Sooner or later, something will be Tweeted that isn’t in line with the celeb’s “personal brand”, and this will distort that image and confuse their audience.
• The speed of Twitter makes it difficult to edit—I understand ghost blogging because the ghost writer has time to interact with the credited author to get ideas for posts and edits on their writing. But Twitter is a real-time conversation. There’s no time for editing and approving every single Tweet before it gets published. This creates a dangerous environment where the ghost writer can very easily slip up by Tweeting something they shouldn’t, and as a result, it’s the celebrity who ends up paying for it.

Alternatives to Ghost Tweeting

• Hire a social media consultant to train you on how best to use Twitter.
• Tweet when you have time. Quality over quantity.
• Don’t Tweet at all

Similar Posts:

• 5 Social Media Sites that you must explore
• 9 Specific Ways Your Business Can Use Twitter
• The Most Common Challenges of Running a Social Media Marketing Campaign
• 10 Examples of Creative Twitter Uses
• 13 Tips for Getting More ReTweets

Chrome Seo for modern search engine optimizers, search engine marketers and webmasters. Now more than ever seo is tied directly to the live web and real-time actions. Blog farms and scrapers, gave way to mass social spam and vote rigging. Brokering links was safe, then unsafe for Google whitehat seo, and everything in between. Page rank was abandoned even though its still with us. No-follow links and page sculpting turned out to be a shame, even with proof of concept.

Now oddly like once before we must track the structure and wider statistics. Serp rank, page rank, site rankings and social authority all now weigh against the new real-time focus. Links are still important but reputation global impact and social reach are just as much a search ranking factor in modern search analysis.

Google’s chrome browser has been with us now for many month but only recently opened the extension arsenal to the world. Social tools, blog extensions, seo plugins and more can all be found. That was half the problem. With so many changes happening every day in the world of search more than the same old tools were needed. With so many old idea once again seeing the light of viable search marketing use, the old tools were sorely needed.

After weeks of trolling the Google extensions directory I was able to round up a multi-layer seo toolkit of chrome extensions. Combine they can take a large chunk of dismay in your conversion to chrome, the extensions we need to assess our clients sites, links and reputation are now includable. The list includes three sections of focus, seo data, site research and technical helpers for the search marketers and seo’s trade.

The SEO ranking and Analysis Section:

Chrome SEO

The Google Chrome SEO extension provides easy access to Search Engine Optimization Tools that can help you with Competitive Analysis, Keyword Research, Backlink Checks and other daily SEO tasks. [link]

Current functions list:

• Pages Indexed on: Bing, Google, Yahoo
• Backlinks as reported by : Alexa, Bing, Google, MajesticSeo, Yahoo
• Current Traffic and Rankings as reported by : Alexa, Compete, Google PageRank, Quantcast, SEMRush, Technorati
• Social Bookmark counts on : Delicious, Digg, Dmoz, StumbleUpon,
• Cached Versions of the website from : Archive.org, CoralCDN, Google, WebCite
• Domain Details such as : DNS, IP Address, Server Location, Whois details

Kuber PageRank Checker

This handy SEO tool shows you the Google PageRank of webpages beside the address box. If the PageRank of the page in current tab is not available, the tool shows the PageRank of the domain instead, prefixed with ‘S’. The PageRank value is cached locally, so it doesn’t have to hit the server every time you switch tab. Moreover, click the icon Alexa rank of the site is displayed in dropdown, as well as links-in number and WHOIS check link. [link] Developer website

META SEO inspector

Meta data is not just the usual HTML meta tags, but the XFN tags, various microformats, the recently introduced canonical attribute, the no-follow links and so on.

This extension is mainly aimed at web developers that need to verify the description tag of their site to follow the Webmasters’ Google Guidelines, SEO, or even to who is curious about page contents that are usually not visible, but can reveal interesting site properties.

Alerts are showed when the meta data is not within certain ranges, for example when the description tag is too short, or too long.

There are links to info-sites ( mainly SEO-oriented ) pointing to the exact page about the site you are watching. [link] Developer website

PageRank

The ‘Fastest’ and very light weight. It shows Google page rank on toolbar. [link] Developer website

SEO

This Chrome SEO plugin implements the SEO Playground Tool (Bookmarklet) by David Naylor. Making it easier to use in Chrome. [link] Developer website

SeoQuake Lite

Display the Google PageRank and Alexa rank of any webpages, in your browser (right-bottom). It’s similar the SearchStatus for FireFox but it works in Chrome. SeoQuake Lite is FAST and SIMPLE [link] Developer website

SeoQuake

Inclusion of parameters in SERPs: After submission of the query into the search engine user is presented with SERP with search results. SeoQuake shows values of the parameters for search results under each result shown on SERP.

SeoQuake is a Chrome extension, which allows user to view a large number of SE parameters on the fly. Displays the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and other SEO parameters of any webpage, highlights nofollow links.

SeoQuake is Chrome SEO extension aimed primarily at helping web masters who deal with search engine optimization (SEO) and internet promotion of web sites. SeoQuake allows it’s users to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly, save them for future work, compare them with the results, obtained for other, competitive, projects.

Beginner web masters and seos will find SeoQuake useful for estimating effectiveness and competitive ability of their SEO efforts. In the hands of professional SeoQuake will become a powerful and indispensable tool for analyzing optimization and promotion level of internet web-projects. [link] Developer website

Full list of SEO parameters:

• Google PageRank
• Google Index
• Yahoo links
• Yahoo linkdomain
• Bing index
• Alexa Rank
• Webarchive age
• Delicious index
• Whois link
• Page source
• SEMRush rank
• Nofollow links

SEO SERP

A simple tool to quickly check the position of a list of sites given a keyword. For example, on the sample image you can see Wikipedia ranking #3 and Amazon ranking 16 for the keyword "lcd".

Countries available:
com, brazil, india, japan, uk, germany, spain, france, italy, netherland [link] Developer website

SEO Status Pagerank/Alexa Toolbar

SEO Status is lightweight. It will check the Google Pagerank (PR) & Alexa rank for every page. Using this may increase your Alexa.

The PageRank and Alexa rank do not rely on a third-party website to gather its data, but retrieves it from Google and Alexa directly. When the button is clicked, it shows more data such as an Alexa traffic graph, ranking number, and useful tools for the avid webmaster. [link] Developer website

When you click the extension icon it will show the additional information:

• Alexa rank number
• Google PR and PR bar
• Backlinks link
• Whois link
• Domain availabiliy for other TLDs

The Section of Google Chrome Research and Metrics Tools

Analytics Helper

Detects if Google Analytics script is installed on page. Displays a notification in the omnibar if a Google Analytics UA code is detected in the web page, if no UA script is found, the icon is not shown either. Hover over the notification icon to see list of UA codes detected. [link]

BuiltWith Technology Profiler

Find out what the website you are visiting is built with using this extension.

BuiltWith is a web site profiler tool. Upon looking up a page, BuiltWith returns all the technologies it can find on the page. BuiltWith’s goal is to help developers, researchers and designers find out what technologies pages are using which may help them to decide what technologies to implement themselves.

The BuiltWith Chrome Extension lets you find out what a website is built with by a simple click on the builtwith icon!

BuiltWith technology tracking includes widgets (snap preview), analytics (Google, Nielsen), frameworks (.NET, Java), publishing (WordPress, Blogger), advertising (DoubleClick, AdSense), CDNs (Amazon S3, Limelight), standards (XHTML,RSS), hosting software (Apache, IIS, CentOS, Debian). [link]

Chrome Flags

Chrome Flags displays a country flag indicating about the physical location of the websites you’re visiting. The extension also provides access to detailed information regarding the website’s servers, owners, traffic and trustworthiness.

During visiting a web page you’ll notice a flag icon on the address bar. That flag tells you where the server you’re visiting is actually hosted. [link]

If you click on the flag, a popup menu provides quick links to additional details:

• IP address.
• Who owns it (whois)
• Web analytic information from Google Trends, Quantcast, Compete and Alexa.
• McAfee Site Advisor.
• Users opinion from WOT – Web Of Trust

DNS.l4x.org Resolver

With the ‘DNS.l4x.org Resolver’ extension you can handily look-up DNS records of the page you’re viewing. The extension can show you IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, mail-servers (MX), aliases (CNAME) and nameservers (NS). The addresses are retrieved and link to https://dns.l4x.org, where further information, like whois excerpts and screenshots can be found. The small badge next to the icon informs you in a blink of an eye of the number of found records. As an extra feature, the extension will also show you your externally visible IP address.

Privacy: The extension will securely contact https://dns.l4x.org (Run privately by the author of this extension) if you open the popup to retrieve the necessary data. No personal data is collected, and the IP addresses of the requests will not be linked to the retrieved domain names. If you want the small badge with the number of records, you have to activate it under the options dialog as it sends a request for _each_ new domain you’re visiting. Results are cached. [link] Developer website

Domain Details

Shows server’s IP address, country flag, software, headers, and provides links to whois reports [link] Developer website

Domain Details provides the following information on the site you are visiting:

• Server IP Address
• Server’s Location. Based on a Geo IP database in the extension, does not poll an external service.
• Server Software. Shows icons for common servers.
• View server response headers within the extension
• Domain Whois Links
• Additional links to useful domain information

SitezMeter

SitezMeter displays traffic charts from Google Trends, Alexa and Compete side by side, as well as ranks. [link] Developer website

This browser companion provides users with extensive information about web sites traffic – instantly find out how popular a web site is, its rank, and how fast it is growing.

With SitezMeter you can quickly compare traffic of up to 3 websites.

SitezMeter is a handy tool to webmaster, web site owner and SEO/SEM specialists.

HostTitle

An extension that appends the hostname of the site to the title bar. [link] Developer website

Site Information Tool

Shows information about the current page (PageRank, Alexa rank, IP info, server response headers, whois and other SEO parameters) Site Information Tool button allows one to explore the most valuable information about the current opened page. [link] Developer website

Site Information Tool includes:

• Rankings information (Google PageRank, Alexa rank, Compete.com rank, Quantcast rank, Technorati rank)
• IP address information (IP, network name & range, country)
• Linking information (indexed pages count, inbound links count, etc.)
• Server response headers
• Page information (title, meta tags, size)
• This page in social networks (del.icio.us, digg.com)
• Domain whois information (domain nameservers, registrant & owner information)
• Feed subscribers count
• List of top performing keywords in Google
• Competitors list

Social Graph Analyzer

Discover profile pages whose owner is similar to the page you’re currently browsing. Try Twitter, FriendFeed, Facbook or similar site to start analysis. [links] Developer website

WOT (web of Trust)

Web of Trust is a safe browsing tool, which warns you about risky sites that cheat customers, deliver malware or send spam. [link] Developer website

WOT’s safe browsing tool warns you about risky sites that can’t be trusted: Online shops that cheat customers; download sites that deliver malware; sites that send spam; and those with inappropriate content for kids.
Millions of members of the WOT community rate websites based on their experiences, giving you an extra layer of protection when browsing or searching the Web. The WOT add-on provides reputation ratings to search results when you use Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Wikipedia and other popular sites. Your Gmail, Yahoo! mail and Hotmail account is also protected.

Technical and Helper Tools Section:

Chromeleon User-Agent Spoofer

Chromeleon is a navigator.userAgent and navigator.vendor spoofing extension. This allows Chrome users to access sites that intentionally or unintentionally serve incompatible content or block Chrome. The extension allows you to set a specific filtering list, so Chromeleon will automatically switch user-agent strings based on the domain or URL you specify. Also, it will use and auto-update a list of sites known to use incorrect user-agent sniffing (which can be disabled.)

Chromeleon does not modify HTTP headers because the Chrome Extensions API doesn’t yet have a way to change them. Sites that sniff user-agent strings at the network level will see through the spoofing. Fortunately, most sites just detect the user-agent at the JavaScript level. [link] Developer website

iMacros for Chrome

iMacros was designed to automate the most repetitious tasks on the web. If there’s an activity you have to do repeatedly, just record it in iMacros. The next time you need to do it, the entire macro will run at the click of a button!

With iMacros, you can quickly and easily fill out web forms, remember passwords, create a webmail notifier, and more. You can keep the macros on your computer for your own use, use them within bookmark sync / Xmarks or share them with others by embedding them on your homepage, blog, company Intranet or any social bookmarking service as bookmarklet. [link] Developer website

Popular uses are as web macro recorder, form filler on steroids and highly-secure password manager (256-bit AES encryption). Web developers use iMacros for web regression testing, performance testing and web transaction monitoring. It can also be combined with Google Speed Tracer, Firebug and other web development and test tools. XPath support is included.

iMacros can be combined with Greasemonkey style content scripts and the macros can be started via the command line e. g. via the Windows task scheduler, batch files or a Linux crown job. You can combine iMacros with ad-blocking extensions like AdBlock, FlashBlock and AdThwart to speed up the web browsing.

Macros recorded with iMacros for Chrome can be replayed in iMacros for IE and iMacros for Firefox without changes! All iMacros versions combined have millions of active users, making it the most popular web browser automation tool.

Search Center

Quick Search of common sites & search engines without having to re-type your search every time. Remembers your last search, or what text you have selected. Can add custom sites from the options page. [link] Developer website

Session Manager

With Session Manager you can quickly save your current browser state and reload it whenever necessary.
You can manage multiple sessions, rename or remove them from the session library.
Each session remembers the state of the browser at its creation time, i.e the opened tabs and windows.
Once a session is opened, the browser is restored to its state. [link]

Some common usage:

• Create sessions for daily routines: Pages you open on morning, noon and evening
• Group pages of common interest such as News, Financial and Social Networks.
• Save the pages found during a research session that you’d like to revisit later.

Shareaholic

Share, save, research or email any web page with your friends right from the page you are on using Twitter, Facebook, GMail, and many more! This extension adds a button to your browser toolbar. Click the share icon whenever you want to share, save, or e-mail the page you’re visiting. Add an optional personal note and send to your friends. Share directly to your favorite services by customizing Shareaholic settings. Shareaholic currently supports over 100 services with weekly updates and additions. [link] Developer website

A sample of the supported services:

WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal, Posterous, Soup.io, Tumblr, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Delicious, Google Bookmarks, StumbleUpon, Dwellicious, Bebo, Mister Wong, Evernote, Netvibes, Stumpedia, Twine, Amazon Wish List, Connotea, Diigo, Folkd, Simpy, Box.net, Google Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Share Button, AOL Mail, Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, Mail, Buzzster, Digg, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit, Google Reader, Techmeme, YC Hacker News, ShareThis, Shareholic, SmakNews, Tipd, Care2, Current, Fark, Khabbr, Mixx, NewsTrust, NowPublic, Propeller, Slashdot, Sphinn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Orkut, Plurk, Identi.ca, Mozillaca, FriendFeed, Hyves, LinkedIn, Netlog, Plaxo, Tweetie, Hub.tm, Hubspot, Bit.ly, Is.gd, j.mp, TinyURL, Goo.gl, Tr.im, Clicky.me, Su.pr, Instapaper, PrintFriendly, Read It Later, Yammer, Google Translate, Box.ne

As you can see, there are many old familiar seo tools, some with slight changes other nearly the same. Many of the newer metrics and trust based tools have been getting some buzz of late and are a very large part of the new world of management in both reputation and rankings. As the extensions are being made faster than any individual can find them all, by all means comment us if we missed something great. The more tools at our combined disposal, the better our entire industry will fair.

New Media Tags: chrome extensions google research seo

• Technorati Tags: chrome,extensions,google,research,seo
• IceRocket Tags: chrome,extensions,google,research,seo
• Flickr Tags: chrome,extensions,google,research,seo
• del.icio.us Tags: chrome,extensions,google,research,seo
• 43 Things Tags: chrome,extensions,google,research,seo

An SEO minded roundup of Google Chrome Extensions Blogged by Mich (@MichDe) De L’Orme

Similar Posts:

• Learn How Google Robots View and Index Your Site
• The Lowdown on Sub Digger Plus
• How To Get Backlinks From Optimal Link Targets
• When SEO Advice Goes Wrong
• 5 Free SEO Tools You’re Probably Not Using Yet