SEO PowerSuite - best kept SEO secret or just bullsh..?!?

[Danni]

I've come across a lot of SEO tools in the last 5-6 years. And there are many great tools out there! I don't believe in the one-tool-fits-all. Among the tools I make use of are Raven Tools and Searchmetrics (great audit and market analysis tool!), and the tools in here, of course.

In my search for a better ranking report tool I came across Rank Tracker from SEO PowerSuite. That seems like a great tool in category with AWR; but I am not able tell so as I am not a power user. Well, here is where I am going: I then tested the rest of the PowerSuite and it seems as a great product. But searching for the tools in here, and nothing shows up. Silence. Also elsewhere in other serious places.

Why is that? It is a collective secret, shhhh, don't tell . Or is it is just crap? I know they have a bad reputation in regard to prices and updates. What do you guys think?

[SAMT.AG]

We own (or have a membership) in all SEO tools just to understand who is doing what.

SEO powersuite is a cool set of tools (website auditor, rank tracker, seo spyglas and link assistant) which are used as client software (not SAS). They follow different approaches and have a good understanding on SEO and how to rank well. These tools will help you, even if you have other SEO tools.

They run promotions where you can get huge discounts, for example 70% and you pay only 200 USD for their base package and you might think or have the impression that it is a one time payment. But this is not true and a subscription update is many times more expensive than to buy a new license.

Basically the bad point with them is that they cheat you with subscription updates you are forced to do to run the software. They have many forced updates, for example the cloud update or the "software Search algo updates and Maintenance plan".

To update a single product (of the 4 or 5 products they have) cost 477,60 USD for 12 months as regular price (means you have to pay 4 x 477,60 USD = 1910,40 USD for a 12 month update). The 1910 USD is just for "professional edition", on the "enterprise edition" it is probably many times more expensive. As their pricing policy is they offer some "friendship discounts" but still the pricing policy of bringing people in with 299 USD for the products and than making very expensive forced update plans is not what I prefer.

Their software is not bad but in the end you can have MOZ or Semrush for the same price or even cheaper.

(PS: You can find some of their pricing here https://www.link-assistant.com/prices.html#search-algo-updates but keep in mind that you have to buy all the packages for all the products)

[Yoav-Blustein]

I have been using the SEO PowerSuite for several years now and i can only say good things about it.
Looks like you are not really using it to its full potential or maybe haven't figured out yet how to use it correctly?

I use MOZ and PowerSuite daily for years and i use them both for different tasks. 
Every tool does something better than the other..

For example i find that RankTracker is the best way (painlessly) to identify what URLs are ranking for which keywords that you find through Google Search Console.

[DeNardo]

Iv been playing around with SEO power suite for a week or so now. I use a cloud hosted solution and the light versions installed on my mac. My opinion is it would be amazing if it worked but it doesn't. I would pick moz any day of the week. Scrapebox seems to work more often. In the end Mozbar is better than both in my opinion. I love the idea of a tool that would give me a backlink to do list and I could just focus on contributing to those blogs so I can start experimenting and learning but it seems google stops these spiders. I will start using proxies soon to see is I can actually start getting useful data.

[zwischengas]

It's really funny that nearly nobody can really give a straight answer on the SEO PowerSuite... I've been using the Rank Tracker for 6 months now. My current opinion on the tool is:

• Rank Tracker alone costs you 50$ per year, this is a very low price compared to the 99$ per month that you pay at MOZ
• Rank Tracker performs all the checks with the IP of your company, it will happen that you will need to enter Captchas when using Google afterwards in the browser. This is a bit annoying. I tried to slow it down, didn't work, it only made the check time even slower.
• Rank Tracker is a bit weird to use, it looks like an out-of-date Windows application that runs on my Mac. I love the look and feel of MOZ.
• Rank Tracker also is a bit bulky to use sometimes. Also the competitor analysis could be solved better.

All in all, I'd love to use MOZ, but that is simply too expensive for a little startup firm.

Therefore my advice: If you have enough budget, go with MOZ, you'll be happy, no doubt. If you need a tool to get a bit of insight into your ranks for certain keywords, go with Rank Tracker.

[advokaten]

Well, keep in mind that you only get updates for 6 months. It says in the fine print:

"* Product enhancements covered by the SEO SpyGlass Search algo updates are offered free for 6 months since the date of purchase. When this period expires, these search engine related updates are offered on a paid basis. Without Search algo updates subscription the software is not getting algo updates and will not gather relevant data."

But even so, i found SEO spyglass useful. I used it a lot earlier. My version has now expired, but i am consider to pay for a renewal.

[jbrabants]

Bought the SEO Spyglass of SEO Powersuite like 3 months ago and it's a great kickstart for linkbuilding research. I didn't try the other tools in the suite, but if they are as handy to use like Spyglass it's worth every penny.One of the reasons I like their software is also their pricing, it's not recurring so you just buy it once and I'm sure you'll get the ROI soon!

[stevenheron]

I find the analysis tools I use now are pretty much limited to Powersuite and seomoz. I don't use auditing software that much, and therefore haven't explored Website Audit to its full potential, so won't be able to give any feedback there.

I strongly suggest you download the software and try the trial. They also have great support. I've made many suggestions and reported bugs and have always received timely responses.

[Danni]

May I ask if you have a special conjunction and/or workflow between the tools in the PowerSuite and other tools you use? I use several site auditing tools, like Searchmetrics that has the best report function on the market right now in matter of usablity and in-depth information. But I see that the WebSite Audit in the PowerSuite has some very nice features - and it is fast. And I have used Raven Tools in terms of ranking and report tool, but it is out-placed when I get a dedicated Ranking tool.

[stevenheron]

I've used tonnes of SEO tools, and powersuite pretty much has a permanent presence in my "necessities" collection. SEO Spyglass is far more powerful and useful than any other tool I've used (and I've tried many). Ranktracker and LinkAssistant are handy little tools I use every day too. Don't use Website Auditor much.

In short, it beats the other SEO junk software out there.

[sferrino]

Rank Tracker has it's own built in 'Find free proxies' just like most other software that I have tried with mixed results. I treat everything as a business, so if it costs me money to save time, or headaches, that's what I do.

I do have the whole suite, but tend not to use the other items, but that is solely a personal thing and you should not base your decision on that. Download the trials.

[Danni]

Thanks David. Not to be rude, but I would be glad to get opinons about the PowerSuite not other software packages

[David_ODonnell]

Web CEO is another software package that includes rank checking and reporting. It actually does a whole lot more than that, but I haven't bothered with any other modules, was only looking for a program to check rankings..

It can be scheduled to run whenever you want, you can choose to have the reports emailed with the results as html or attached as .xls / . csv etc.

[Danni]

Thanks Steven. Good point about captchas and paid proxies - is that handled by Rank Tracker or is it something I should provide? I have the same rational opinion about the price. Do you make use of the other products of the Suite, SpyGlass seems like a nice product?

[sferrino]

I have Rank Tracker set to fire off every morning around 4 to do my bidding, er checking. It works great if you use paid proxies, but using my own IP it just asks me to fill out captchas. I imagine I could set it to run slower to avoid that. I do have the whole suite, but only found that Rank Tracker was the only tool I had a use for.

Updates seem to be fairly regular, about every 2 weeks. As for pricing, the amount of time it saves me on a weekly basis had it paid for itself in about six weeks.