Compare WebCEO, IBP (Internet Business Promoter), SEO Elite, Market Samurai, SEO PowerSuite: popular SEO tools comparison
How do you pick out the best SEO software and make sure every hard earned cent that you pay for it pays you back? Check reviews of different search engine optimization tools and choose the software that'll work best for your online business.
Web CEO, IBP (Internet Business Promoter), SEO Elite, Market Samurai and SEO PowerSuite are the most widely-used search engine optimization tools out there, and all promise you growth of rankings and profits boost. But just like any thing you're buying, SEO tools have good and bad points standing behind their promises, and it's better to take a chance and weigh the pros and cons before investing your money into a particular website optimization and promotion tool.
This comparison will help you figure out if the software you're planning to use will do all you need to promote your websites. That's your chance to not simply compare the top four SEO tools, but see the most valuable and unique features of each software pointed out.
You'd better take a careful look to choose what better suits your needs. These tables show you a brief overview of important features. And for detailed SEO software reviews and screenshots, click the software titles here or in the tables.
| Feature | Web CEO | IBP (Internet Business Promoter) | SEO Elite | Market Samurai | SEO PowerSuite |
| Keyword research | Not included in SEO Elite | ||||
| Free version | Yes | Yes (very limited) | Yes (12-day trial) | Yes | |
| Number of keywords suggested | Free Edition — 5 StartUp Edition — 10 SmallBiz Edition — 50 Pro Edition — 1000 |
Unlimited in all editions | Unlimited in all editions | Unlimited in all editions | |
| Daily world searches | Yes | Yes (not in free version) | Yes | Yes | |
| Number of competing sites | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| KEI | Yes | Yes (not in free version) | No | Yes | |
| Highlighting words with high KEI | Yes | No | No | Yes | |
| Different keyword suggestion mechanisms | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Google Keyword Suggestion | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Yahoo! Search Assist | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Ask TypeAhead Search Suggestions | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Mixing keywords | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Misspellings | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Choice of types of misspellings | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Keyword Combination | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Length of keyphrase | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Your current ranking for each keyword | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Customizable workspaces | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Advanced workspace filters | No | No | A limited set of filters | Yes | |
| Runs on Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Runs on Mac OS X | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Runs on Linux | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Quick search through keywords | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Wizards | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Inner explanations of SEO notions | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Google API key | Yes | No | No | Yes | |
| Yahoo! API key | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Bing API key | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Data migration to spreadsheets | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Generating keyword reports | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Emailing reports to clients automatically | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Keyword data available for printout | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Saving reports in PDF (HTML) | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| FTP upload of reports to make them available online | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Scheduling keyword research and reporting tasks | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Web CEO | IBP (Internet Business Promoter) | SEO Elite | Market Samurai | SEO PowerSuite | |
| Writing optimized content (onpage optimization) | There's no explicit function in SEO Elite, just some on-page analysis present in section 1. | Not included in Market Samurai | |||
| Creating optimization strategy based on competition research | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Unlimited number of sites to check | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| "Stop" words (omitting or indicating articles, prepositions and other words search engines don't take into account) | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Number of keywords to enter and analyze | 3 max | 1 | Keywords not entered — the software analyzes only those present on the page | Unlimited, but 3 is recommended | |
| Choosing the search engine for which to optimize the webpage | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Optimization rate of the page | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Optimization rate of each page element | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Optimization score of the webpage | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Main onpage factors | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Main offpage factors | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Display of keywords, as viewed by search engines | Yes | No | No | Yes | |
| Clear display of each page element | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Recommendations for optimized content | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Keyword density analysis | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Unlimited number of keywords for density analysis | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Displaying the number of page elements containing a keyword | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Displaying words other than specified keywords | No | Yes | N/A | Yes | |
| Analyzing words other than specified keywords | No | No | N/A | Yes | |
| Comparison with competition | Yes (not in free version) | Yes | No | Yes | |
| SEO tips in the report | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| SEO tips in the software | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Wizard | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Google API key | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Yahoo! API key | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Bing API key | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Data migration to spreadsheets | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Generating onpage optimization reports | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Emailing reports to clients automatically | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Reports available for printout | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Saving reports in PDF (HTML) | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| FTP upload of reports to make them available online | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Web CEO | IBP (Internet Business Promoter) | SEO Elite | Market Samurai | SEO PowerSuite | |
| Link Building | |||||
| Finding quality link partners in the leading search engines | Yes | Yes | Yes | Among Web 2.0, blogs and forum only | Yes |
| Search for potential partners among sites linking to your competitors | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Finding sites that already link to you | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scanning links from a specific webpage | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Checking potential link partners' Google PR | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Checking link partners' link popularity | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Checking link partners' Alexa rank | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Measuring your own website's popularity over time | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Sending personalized emails using customizable templates | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Email variables | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Bulk email correspondence | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic cycle of email correspondence | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Receiving and organizing emails from your link partners | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic email address mining | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Generating link pages | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Customizable link pages | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Do the generated links pages support categories? | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Manageable workspaces | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Filters for partner lists | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Checking if link partners link back to you | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Displaying the status of a link partner and managing statuses | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Updating multiple link partners' properties at once | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Built-in browser to view websites and generated links pages | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Finding and autocompleting link submission forms | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Making your links page available online via FTP | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Google API key | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Yahoo! API key | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Bing API key | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Data migration to spreadsheets | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Generating link building reports | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Emailing reports to clients automatically | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Reports available for printout | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Saving reports in PDF (HTML) | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| FTP upload of reports to make them available online | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Web CEO | IBP (Internet Business Promoter) | SEO Elite | Market Samurai | SEO PowerSuite | |
| Competition research for link building | This module is not present in IBP, some data gets collected, but is not organized | ||||
| Building linking strategy based on competition research | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| The domain of the linking site | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| The exact URL from which the backlink stands. | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| TLD research | No | Yes | Yes | .edu and .gov links only | Yes |
| Ability to find sitewide links | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Google PageRank of a domain | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Google PageRank of each page | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| The number of outbound links | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| The total number of links on a webpage | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Link value of a potential backlink | No | relevance | No | No | Yes |
| Marking pages that may provide the best link value | No | relevance | No | No | Yes |
| Page's title | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Does a page really link back? | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Link's anchor text | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Link's anchor URL | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| IP address of the linking site | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Country of the linking site | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Retrieving contact info | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Yahoo! and DMOZ listings | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Alexa traffic rank | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Domain age | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Google API key | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Yahoo! API key | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Bing API key | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Data migration to spreadsheets | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Generating link strategy reports | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Emailing link strategy reports to clients | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Reports available for printout | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Saving reports in PDF (HTML) | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| FTP upload of reports to make them available online | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Web CEO | IBP (Internet Business Promoter) | SEO Elite | Market Samurai | SEO PowerSuite | |
| Checking performance (tracking rankings for keywords) | |||||
| Indicate how your site ranks for each keyword | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rich search engine choice | Yes | Yes | No | 3 | Yes |
| Selecting multiple search engines based on country and language | Yes | Yes | No | 3 | Yes |
| Research as many keywords as you like | Yes | 10 in free version Unlimited in a paid version |
Yes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Number of search engines used at a time | Unlimited | 1 in free Unlimited in a paid version |
5 | 3 | Unlimited |
| Number of search engine result pages to check | Unlimited | 3 in free version Unlimited in paid version |
Unlimited, but pages after first rarely get correctly parsed | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Manageable workspaces | No | 1 in free version Unlimited in a paid version |
No | Yes | Yes |
| Customizable filters | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Competition for keywords | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Number of searches | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| KEI for keywords | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Advanced search safety settings | Yes | Only human emulation | No | Using proxies only | Yes |
| Google API key | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Yahoo! API key | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Bing API key | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Human Emulation | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Random User Agents rotation | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Competitors' rankings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Adding keywords from the keyword suggestion tool | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Integrated keyword research | No | No (keyword research is made in a separate tool) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Adding keywords from a text file or a spreadsheet | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Typing in keywords manually | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Adding many keywords at a time | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Adding color markers to keywords | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Displaying keyphrase length | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Wizards | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Comparing ranking results from different dates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Only last checked | Yes |
| Comparing ranking results with the best/poorest result | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Viewing results grouped by SE or by keyword | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Preferred SEs | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Reports view | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Displaying meta descriptions of webpages | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Progress Graphs | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Setting time period for which to build a progress graph | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Data migration to spreadsheets | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Generating ranking reports | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Emailing reports to clients automatically | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Reports available for printout | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Saving reports in PDF (HTML) | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| FTP upload of reports to make them available online | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Scheduling rank checking and reporting tasks | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Web CEO, IBP (Internet Business Promoter), Market Samurai and SEO PowerSuite all have free versions — you can use them before you decide to make a purchase. SEO Elite doesn't provide a free or trial version. Therefore, we tested Web CEO, IBP, Market Samurai and SEO PowerSuite free and paid and SEO Elite paid. All tools ran smoothly on Windows, and we didn't see any crucial bugs in WebCEO, IBP, Market Samurai or SEO PowerSuite. (Please note that SEO PowerSuite also works on Mac OS X and Linux without restrictions.)
Take a look at more detailed reviews of these SEO tools to make the best choice:
And if you're already using any of the above tools WebCEO, IBP (Internet Business Promoter), SEO Elite, Market Samurai or another commercial web site promotion tool you can get SEO PowerSuite at an indecently low price. Just go here to claim your competitive discount.. Note that this offer may end any time.
Even if you don't own any other search engine optimization tool, you can save some cash with SEO PowerSuite.
Comparison was done in 2009. Quite sure there may be updates to any of these web promotion/management programs. We're going to update this comparison, so if any new features appear in the reviewed SEO software (WebCEO, IBP, SEO Elite, Market Samurai or SEO PowerSuite), we'll try to mention them here. If you see any omissions or errors, please let us know!
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