New version of the Webposition Gold search engine optimization software.

Today the search engine submission software Webposition Gold is reborn in its third incarnation. Although, to call it submission software is like calling a modern PC a calculator.

(August 2 2004) The fact is that the submission part is the feature you don't need, as the major search engines prefer to find your web pages by their own and hate that people resubmit pages that are already indexed.

So why would you like to buy a package like Webposition Gold?

Well, if you have a large site, or -- even more relevant -- several sites that your livelihood depends on, you need to have a search engine marketing strategy, i.e. systematic approach to how to get good listings for your web pages in the search engines.

Next you need some way to track your success. Do you really improve your ranking? And if not, what are you doing wrong?

(See our search engine marketing tutorial for the basics.)

The old version of Webposition Gold, which is now some two years old, had several very useful features, including a "reporter" that checks your position in a large number of search engines, and gives you the statistics in a easily readable database. The reporter can be combined with a scheduler that activates the reporter daily, weekly, or monthly to automatically check your Web site's positions.

This is a very powerful tool, and probably the main reason people are buying such software. Google is not to happy about it, however, as they think this is a way of stealing bandwidth. However, we have so far not met anyone who has been banned for using software like Webposition Gold or Search Engine Commando, unless they have queried Google repeatedly for a veeeery long time.

Version 2 has a "Page Critic" that analyses your web pages and give advice on how to optimize them for the various search engines. Obviously thee people behind Webposition does not have access to the search engine algorithm and will have to guess on what is the optimal number of -- let's say -- keywords in a metatag. However, these are knowledgeable people that have gained quite some experience in the field. It seems these are well qualified guesses indeed!

Version 2 also has a page generator creates optimized Web pages based on keywords and details you enter about your business, and you can even use Webposition to upload these files to your site. We like to have full control over our web copy, so we have not tested this feature.

Then there is the submitter that lets you submit your pages to a large number of search engines. Version 3 lists to no less than 137 search engines.

Now, this is where you should tread carefully. There are no more than three major search engines in the world: Google, Yahoo! and AskJeeves. MSN, ALtaVIsta, AlltheWeb, AOL are all incarnations of one of the three. And most of the other search engines are either pay per click search engines where you pay to be included or metasearch engines that mixes data from all the others.

Hence it makes no sense to submit your pages to some 40 versions of Google. But then again Webposition does not do this. Version 3 gives you a long list of Google powered sites, including Goo in Japan and Nettavisen in Norway (!), but makes only one submission: and that is to the main site. In addition to the three major search engine, Webposition also includes EntireWeb and ExactSeek as well as five regional engines.

So what else is new in Webposition Gold 3?

Webposition Gold is now integrated with the Wordtracker keyword analyzer, a service that uses a database based on queries given to metasearch engines to determine what keyword phrases you should target in your campaign.

For instance: do people search for "search engine marketing" or "search engine optimization"? You can now access this service within Webposition Gold. This is a very useful feature indeed, which will probably tempt many into acquiring this version.

Many webmasters combine regular search engine optimization with the use of text ads from, for instance, Google AdWords and Overture. Webposition Gold will now differentiate between "organic" and paid search listings through detailed keyword ranking reports that include and compare them.

Moreover, the new version will report from more global search engines than before, and may now include Google's shopping search engine, Froogle. Webposition has also simplified the interface, making it easier to use.

Finally, we can now see the results of Webposition being acquired by the owners of Webtrends. If you own or buy the Webtrends web traffic analytics software, you can combine this with Webposition.

As Webposition Gold says: You can "analyze results from search engines and specific keywords all the way through to conversion, revenue and ROI through integration with Webtrends."

There are three flavors of Webposition Gold:

• The standard edition is for small business owners.
• The professional version is for SEO professionals, marketers or web developers within large enterprise organizations. This version allows you to optimize an unlimited number of domains and to customize reports with their own logos.
• The Platinum upgrade is available for users of both editions, and provides support for additional search engines as well as three modules to manage META tags, eliminate broken links and defend web pages from competitive copying.

There are several good search engine optimization packages out there, but the combination of Webposition, Wordtracker and Webtrends makes this version of WP Gold very attractive indeed!

Webposition Gold site

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