Bing’s Free SEO Toolkit Review
Bing recently released their SEO Toolkit (currently still in beta) and I took some time to run through the toolkit to see what kinds of information it gave me.
The first thing you should know is installing it is less than a breeze.
First, you need to be using a PC – no surprise there.
In order to install the toolkit, you need to jump through a bunch of hoops first.
- You need a PC running Vista, Windows Server, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. It won’t work on XP (which is a shame). Most of you reading this (if you’re not using a Mac) will have Windows Vista on your computer.
- If you do have Windows Vista, you need to be sure that youalso have installed Windows Vista SP1 (service pack 1) or higher. Most of you will also already have this if your computer updates itself regularly.
- You also need IIS 7 running on your computer. Unless you’ve worked on a server team, the typical webmaster probably won’t understand what this means (huge problem!). Click here to view the Microsoft installation guide and get IIS 7.
UPDATE: Note that on the Microsoft site – this link points to a topic that is “No Longer Available”. After checking Microsoft’s own post about this installation guide, I receive the same message. Hopefully they’ll have it fixed soon. - Next, you need to enable IIS 7 before you can install the SEO Toolkit. To do this…
- Click Start.
- Click Control Panel.
- Click Programs.
- Select “Turn Windows features on or off”.
- When the window opens, select the “Internet Information Services” check box.
- Click the plus sign (+) to expand the directory (they call them nodes), expand “world wide web services” and then expand “Application Development Features”. Finally, check the box next to .net Extensibility.
- Click “OK” and then wait…a long time…while your computer updates.
Now, you next have to determine if you’re running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows.
(By now, I’ll bet that a vast majority of people have already said “This is WAY too much trouble – forget it!). And I wouldn’t blame you. As much as Microsoft search has evolved, it seems that the rest of the company has not.
To do this…
- Click Start
- Right click “Computer” and then choose “Properties”
- In the “system group” the System Type will tell you what kind you’re running; 32-bit or 64-bit.
- FINALLY, install the right version. (Note that these links will download the SEO Toolkit to your computer – they’re directly from Microsoft. If you’d rather view the Microsoft page itself, click here.):
- NOW, you’re ready to install and use the SEO Toolkit (and it’s probably time for a quick break). I don’t know about you but my head hurts!
Once you have the SEO Toolkit installed, you’ll need to open the program. But like most programs that you install, where you expect to see them in your Start menu, this one’s a little tricky.
- Click the Start icon on your Windows Vista computer.
- In the Start Search box, type “IIS”.
- IIS manager should pop up in the window. I suggest that you move this to your desktop in an easier-to-find location.
- Double click the program.
- Once it loads in the main menu section scroll down to “Search Engine Optimization” and double click on “Site Analysis”.
- Next, on the right, click “New Analysis”.
- Give it a name.
- Enter in the URL of your website and make your additional choices from here (which aren’t many).
- Finally click “OK”.
Now the program will traverse your website and find issues (if any) that relate to SEO (as Bing sees it).
There’s various categories that Bing looks at such as SEO, Content, Standards and Performance.
Now, while this was a hassle to install it does give you a great deal of on-page SEO information.
For instance it found multiple spots where I had missed giving an image an alt tag attribute.
It also found a few spots where my description was too long and where I had a few broken hyperlinks – many of these attributed to a bookmarking service that I had included on my web pages.
If you double-click on any of the pages that had issues within the SEO Toolkit, you’ll get a very detailed analysis of that web page (this is definitely a plus). Things like:
- A Word Analysis which shows you…
- The counts for any specific word or phrase up to three word phrases.
- The character count on the page.
- The links referenced on the page along with their anchor text.
- The links pointing TO the page.
- The links coming FROM the page.
- As well as what the linking status is, is it OK or not found, the linking title, the linked URL the type of link and the anchor text. All invaluable information to have.
Now, all this being said, I will tell you of one very large (and frustrating) issue that I had. After I ran through the steps and set up everything exactly as explained, I could NOT get to any of my websites that I had set up in the SEO Toolkit.
I could get anywhere else (so I knew it wasn’t my internet connection) but just not to my own sites. Obviously very frustrating.
Now, my husband who is a VoIP engineer and who works with this kind of thing on a daily basis couldn’t even figure out what the issue was. And we together tried multiple things…all to no avail.
Until…for the heck of it, I unplugged my DSL modem, plugged it back in and all was fine (Occam’s Razor). So in the event you follow through this process, and have the same issues, just try rebooting your modem. I can’t guarantee it will work for you, but it worked for me. (You’ve just received a 5-hour-time-saving tip).
All in all, I think that the SEO Toolkit provides great information, so long as you’re willing to put up with the installation of it. And best of all it’s free!
View this walkthrough at Bing (complete with screenshots) by clicking here.