Browse the tools
Free toolXML Sitemap CheckerPaste your sitemap URL and check it against Google’s rules: errors, lastmod, sub-sitemaps, and whether Googlebot, Bingbot and AI crawlers can reach it.Open the tool →Free toolRobots.txt CheckerCheck your robots.txt against Google’s rules: syntax errors, what it blocks for Googlebot, Bingbot and AI crawlers, and the line that decides each URL.Open the tool →Free toolAI Content CheckerPaste a text and see which typical traits of AI writing it has, and where: stock phrases, uniform rhythm, narrow vocabulary. Explained signals, not a verdict.Open the tool →Free toolPlagiarism CheckerCompare your text with the URLs or text you choose and see which passages match, word for word, and by how much.Open the tool →Google & Bing (free)
- Google Analytics 4Measure organic traffic and conversionsRead the guide →
- Google Search ConsoleIndexing, queries and errorsAvailable 19 October
- Bing Webmaster ToolsBing, IndexNow and AI searchComing · October 2026
- Google Tag ManagerTags without touching the codeComing · November 2026
- PageSpeed InsightsCore Web Vitals from field dataComing · November 2026
- Looker StudioDashboards from GSC and GA4Coming · November 2026
- Google Keyword PlannerSearch volumes from GoogleComing · December 2026
- Rich Results TestValidate structured dataComing · December 2026
- Google TrendsSeasonality and comparisonsComing · December 2026
Crawlers & SEO suites
- Screaming FrogCrawl your site like a search engineAvailable 23 October
- AhrefsLinks, keywords and competitorsComing · November 2026
- SemrushKeyword and audit suiteComing · November 2026
- SitebulbVisual technical auditsComing · November 2026
- MajesticTrust Flow and link profilesComing · December 2026
- Moz ProDomain Authority and keywordsComing · December 2026
- SE RankingThe budget suiteComing · January 2027
- Hreflang checkersValidate language versionsComing · January 2027
WordPress plugins
- Yoast SEOOn-page SEO in WordPressComing · October 2026
- Rank MathModule-based SEO pluginComing · November 2026
- All in One SEOCompared with Yoast and Rank MathComing · December 2026
- Redirection301s and 404s in WordPressComing · January 2027
- Cache pluginsWP Rocket and LiteSpeed CacheComing · January 2027
AI visibility
- Ahrefs Brand RadarYour brand in AI answersComing · December 2026
- Peec AIVisibility in ChatGPT and PerplexityComing · December 2026
- ProfoundAI citations for large brandsComing · January 2027
Black hat & bulk links
- ScrapeboxScraping and footprints, and the risksComing · November 2026
- GSA Search Engine RankerBulk links and how they get caughtComing · December 2026
- XrumerForum spam and why it stopped workingComing · January 2027
1 of 28 guides published · the rest switch on by themselves on their publication day
This section of doctor-seo.net has one page per SEO tool: how to install it, which settings change outcomes, and which decisions it helps you make. It covers 28 tools in five groups, from Google Search Console to the bulk link tools whose main use Google’s spam policies list as link spam. It is written for site owners, in-house SEOs and agencies who want a tool working this week, not a feature tour.
The verdict first: most sites can start with tools that cost nothing, but “free” comes with conditions that most tool lists leave out. Google’s Keyword Planner is free to use, yet Google’s own help page says “You must complete your account setup by entering your billing information to access basic features”. Google’s pricing page for its reporting tool now calls it Data Studio, “available at no charge for creators and report viewers”, with a paid Pro tier. And four paid tools in this section offer a trial but no free plan on their own pricing pages: Sitebulb, SE Ranking, WP Rocket and Peec AI. All of this was checked on 10 October 2026.
The table further down lists every tool, what it is for, its free or paid status as each vendor documents it, and the date its page goes live. Only pages that are already published are linked.
How every tool page is built
Every tool page in the doctor-seo.net SEO Tools section follows the same six-step order, so you can jump straight to the part you need. Each step answers one question.
- Install or access. Account, verification or plugin installation, step by step, with menu paths taken from the vendor’s current help documentation. If the vendor does not document a path, the page does not invent one.
- Settings that matter. The 5 to 10 settings that change results, and the ones you can safely leave on their defaults.
- Workflows that end in a decision. Three to five SEO tasks, each finishing with “if you see X, do Y” rather than with a report to file away.
- Limits. What the tool cannot tell you, tied to the vendor’s own documentation wherever it exists.
- Alternatives. Sibling tool pages, linked once they are live.
- Where the course goes deeper. Links to the lessons that teach the method behind the tool.
Each page closes with a Sources block in which every price, plan limit and feature is linked to the vendor page it came from, with the date it was checked. Prices for the paid suites, the AI trackers, Bing Webmaster Tools and the cache plugins change often, so those pages carry a visible verification date.
The overlap rule: tools here, method in the course
Tool pages own the tool: installation, settings, features and workflows. The free SEO course owns the method: why you crawl a site, how to read a traffic drop, what a canonical tag is for. A tool page never re-teaches a lesson; it links to it. So the Screaming Frog page shows you how to configure a crawl, while the technical SEO level explains what to do with what the crawl finds. In the same way, the analytics tool pages hand the interpretation to the SEO analytics level.
Which tools to start with: a decision tree
The starter stack below uses only tools whose free status the vendor documents, checked on 10 October 2026. Work through it from the top and stop when a branch no longer applies to you.
- Every site, day one. Verify the site in Google Search Console, which Google calls “a free service offered by Google”, and in Bing Webmaster Tools, whose site promises “free reports, tools and resources”. Add Google Analytics 4, which Google offers “free of charge”.
- If more than one tracking script needs managing and you do not want to edit theme code each time, add Google Tag Manager, which lets you, in Google’s words, “Manage all your website tags without editing code”, and which Google offers “for free”.
- If the site runs on WordPress, install one SEO plugin, not two. Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO all publish free versions on WordPress.org, with paid upgrades. If you are changing URLs, add Redirection, whose listing states “There’s no premium version”.
- If the site has 500 URLs or fewer, the free version of Screaming Frog SEO Spider can crawl all of it: the vendor lists a crawl limit of 500 URLs. If it has more, choose between a paid Screaming Frog licence ($279 per licence per year, checked 10 October 2026) and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, which gives “5,000 crawl credits per verified project per month” on sites you can verify.
- If you need data on sites you do not own, which is the normal case for an agency, you are into paid tools. Ahrefs states that its subscription plans are what let you analyse unverified websites, and Semrush’s free account allows 10 Domain Overview queries per day.
- If you need keyword research with no budget, use Google Trends and Keyword Planner, and remember the billing-information requirement above before you promise a client a free workflow.
- If you report to clients or a manager, Looker Studio (Data Studio on Google’s pricing page) costs nothing for creators and viewers. Only the Pro tier is paid.
Two branches deliberately stop short of a recommendation. Which paid suite to buy depends on the data you need, and the suite pages set out what each one documents. Whether to track AI visibility depends on your budget, because all three AI trackers in this section are sold as paid products, trials or a limited free preview.
The SEO tools, by category
The tables list all 28 tool pages in the section. The free or paid column records what each vendor’s own page said on 10 October 2026. Where we could not read the vendor’s page that day, the cell says so instead of guessing. Publication dates come from the section calendar, and a tool name is linked only once its page is live.
Google and Bing free tools
| Tool | What it is for | Free or paid (checked 10 Oct 2026) | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Measuring what organic visitors do after they land | Free (Google: “free of charge”) | Live |
| Google Search Console | Indexing, queries, clicks and errors straight from Google | Free (Google: “a free service”) | from 19 October 2026 |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Bing indexing data and IndexNow submission | Free reports and tools, per Bing | from 29 October 2026 |
| Google Tag Manager | Deploying tracking tags without editing code | Free (Google) | from 10 November 2026 |
| PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse | Field and lab performance data for a URL | Lighthouse is open source; the PageSpeed Insights page lists no price | from 17 November 2026 |
| Looker Studio | Dashboards combining Search Console and GA4 data | No charge; Pro tier is paid | from 24 November 2026 |
| Google Keyword Planner | Keyword ideas and search volume ranges | Free to use; Google requires billing information in the Ads account | from 1 December 2026 |
| Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator | Validating structured data | No price or plan listed by Google | from 10 December 2026 |
| Google Trends | Seasonality and relative interest over time | No price or plan listed by Google | from 22 December 2026 |
Crawlers and audit suites
| Tool | What it is for | Free or paid (checked 10 Oct 2026) | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Desktop crawling for technical audits | Free up to 500 URLs; paid licence beyond | from 23 October 2026 |
| Ahrefs | Backlinks, keywords and site audits | Paid plans; free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for verified sites | from 4 November 2026 |
| Semrush | Keyword, competitor and site-audit suite | Paid plans; free account with daily limits | from 13 November 2026 |
| Sitebulb | Desktop and cloud audits with prioritised hints | Paid; 14-day free trial, no free plan | from 27 November 2026 |
| Majestic | Link index with Trust Flow and Citation Flow | Paid plans; some free tools listed | from 13 December 2026 |
| Moz Pro | Domain Authority and keyword research | Vendor site could not be read on 10 Oct 2026, so not stated here | from 25 December 2026 |
| SE Ranking | Lower-cost all-in-one suite | Paid; 14-day free trial, no free plan | from 5 January 2027 |
| Hreflang checkers | Validating hreflang annotations between language versions | Varies: the page covers several tools | from 8 January 2027 |
WordPress SEO plugins
| Tool | What it is for | Free or paid (checked 10 Oct 2026) | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yoast SEO | Titles, meta descriptions, sitemaps and schema in WordPress | Free plugin; paid Premium | from 27 October 2026 |
| Rank Math | Modular SEO plugin with a setup wizard | Free plugin; paid PRO | from 8 November 2026 |
| All in One SEO (AIOSEO) | SEO plugin, compared with Yoast and Rank Math | Free Lite version; paid Pro | from 16 December 2026 |
| Redirection | Managing 301 redirects and 404 logs | Free; the listing says there is no premium version | from 2 January 2027 |
| Cache plugins (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache) | Page caching and front-end optimisation | WP Rocket paid with a 14-day trial; LiteSpeed Cache free, some services paid | from 19 January 2027 |
AI and LLM-visibility tools
| Tool | What it is for | Free or paid (checked 10 Oct 2026) | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Brand mentions in AI answers | Paid; free preview tool; prompts included on paid Ahrefs plans | from 3 December 2026 |
| Peec AI | Tracking visibility for set prompts in AI assistants | Paid plans; free trial, no free plan | from 29 December 2026 |
| Profound | AI citation tracking for larger brands | Free 7-day trial; Enterprise priced on request | from 16 January 2027 |
Black hat and bulk link building tools
| Tool | What it is for | Free or paid (checked 10 Oct 2026) | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scrapebox | Scraping, footprint research and bulk commenting | Paid, one-time purchase for a single PC licence | from 20 November 2026 |
| GSA Search Engine Ranker | Automated bulk link creation | Vendor page could not be read on 10 Oct 2026, so not stated here | from 20 December 2026 |
| Xrumer | Automated forum posting | No vendor page we could verify, so not stated here | from 13 January 2027 |
One number from these tables is worth keeping: Yoast SEO’s WordPress.org listing shows 10+ million active installations. Its page is the first of the plugin pages to go live, on 27 October 2026.
AI assistants for SEO: covered in the course, not here
General-purpose AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity do not get tool pages in this section. Their set-up guides already live in Level 8 of the course, AI for SEO, so the section links out to them rather than writing a second version. The AI category in the tables above covers something different: trackers that measure whether a brand appears in AI answers.
These Level 8 lessons are live now:
- Claude for SEO, the starting point for setting up an assistant for SEO work.
- Claude Skills for SEO, on turning a repeatable SEO task into a skill.
- Claude Code for technical SEO.
- Connecting Claude to Search Console through MCP.
- Connecting Claude to WordPress through MCP.
- Which AI to use for each SEO task.
Still to come in Level 8: the Ahrefs and Semrush connectors for Claude, a Screaming Frog MCP lesson, ChatGPT prompts for SEO, custom GPTs with actions, Gemini for SEO and Perplexity for SEO. Level 0’s lesson on the essential SEO tools is also on its way. Each will be linked from here once it is published.
Black hat and bulk link tools: how these pages are written
The Scrapebox, GSA Search Engine Ranker and Xrumer pages follow the framing of the course’s Level 7 on black hat SEO: what the tool does and how it works, the footprints it leaves, how Google’s link spam policy catches it, and what it costs when it goes wrong. They include installation and configuration only as far as you need them to recognise those footprints. They are not link-blasting recipes. Google’s spam policies for Google web search (last updated 28 August 2026) define link spam as “the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings” and list “using automated programs or services to create links to your site” among the examples. Scrapebox also has legitimate uses, such as scraping and footprint research, and its page covers both sides. The vendor itself calls it “the Swiss Army Knife of SEO”. The method behind all three pages is taught in the SEO course, and unfamiliar terms are defined in the SEO glossary.
Sources
- Google Search Console Help, About Search Console, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google Marketing Platform, Google Analytics, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google Marketing Platform, Tag Manager, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Microsoft Bing, Bing Webmaster Tools (page description), undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google Cloud, Data Studio product and pricing page, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google Ads Help, Keyword Planner help article, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google, PageSpeed Insights, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Chrome for Developers, Lighthouse overview, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google Search Central, Test your structured data (Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator), undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google, Google Trends, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Screaming Frog, SEO Spider pricing, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Ahrefs, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, pricing and Brand Radar, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Semrush, What can you do with a free Semrush account, 10 December 2025, checked 10 October 2026.
- Sitebulb, pricing, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Majestic, plans and pricing, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- SE Ranking, subscription plans, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- WordPress.org plugin directory: Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, Redirection and LiteSpeed Cache, checked 10 October 2026.
- WP Rocket, pricing, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Peec AI, pricing, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Profound, pricing, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- ScrapeBox, home page, undated, checked 10 October 2026.
- Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search, last updated 28 August 2026, checked 10 October 2026.