The Google Toolbar has grown significantly in features sinceinception. It now features several new useful features but the mainfocus of this article is on those that aid in search engineoptimization. So without further ado here's the Google Toolbarunfolded.
PageRank
Upon installation of the full Googletoolbar you will notice a small bar near the center of it that may ormay not be partially filled with a green color as displayed in thediagram below.
This is the Google PageRank indicator. PageRank is one ofGoogle's ways of rating your website and plays a role in the positionof your site in their search results. This value is calculated based onseveral variables including the PageRank value and the number of sitesthat link to that page. Sites with a higher page rank tend to havebetter rankings than other sites if all other things are kept equal. Ihave personally noticed a significant increase in the search engineplacement of our Search Engine Optimization (Lilengine.com) site whenever our Google page rank is increased.
The Google toolbar enable you to, at a glance, view thePageRank of your website as well as your competitors' sites. This helpswhen looking for sites to engage in with link building as more linkscoming from sites with a higher PageRank than yours help to increaseyour site's PageRank. It is also said that when looking for site tolink to yours that you should aim for sites with a PR 4 or higher.LilEngine personally accepts links from any useful and relatedresources, links from sites with a PageRank of 4 and above are an addedbonus. Contact us for an exchange at info@lilengine.com.
A side note
There are times when the Google Toolbar will display yourwebsite as having a PageRank of 0 or even no rank at all. If your sitepreviously had a PR greater than 0 and you notice this, watch it for awhile or close your browser and reopen it to check as there are timesthat this feature seems to be a bit buggy possibly due to updates etcat Google.
Cached Version
When Google spiders your site itrecords the latest version of your site that it has spidered and thiscan be viewed using the Google Toolbar by going to the Page Info buttonand selecting cached version. Your browser must be on the page youwould like to see the cached version of at the time you choose to dothis.
How can this help you with your SEO campaign?
Ifyou have optimized your website in hopes of increasing your searchengine results in Google, this will indicate whether or not Google hasupdated their database with the new version of your page. If theGooglebot visits your site regularly the cached version of your sitewill be updated more frequently than otherwise.
Backward Links
The Google Toolbar also has apretty useful feature that displays all the web pages that link to yourweb page, which Google counts towards your PageRank. This informationisn't regularly updated and can't be expected to take between 1 - 3months before changes can be seen. Backlinks deal with quality and notquantity. A site with 1000 mediocre backlinks may not have as high aPage Rank as a site with 800 high PR backlinks.
Highlighting
You have the option of adding ahighlight feature to your Google Toolbar that highlights all instancesof your search term on the web page reached from your search. This canhelp you see how many times your competitors use specific keywords ontheir pages and you may modify your SEO campaign accordingly. You mayalso use this to check your own pages and see if you are or are notusing enough of your target keywords on your page for optimum searchengine placement. Besides those features listed above there are alsosome other cool tools on the Google Toolbar such as:
Popup Blocker: This only works in IE 5.5 or later butis a great addition as we all know that there are many sites on the webthat bombard you with popups. Some of these even go as far as almostpreventing you from going anywhere else as more and more windows keeppopping up. Annoyance factor 10/10.
Google Web Search: You can easily search the web usingthe Google Search Engine via the Google Toolbar by typing in yoursearch terms in the search box area and then clicking enter or clickingthe 'Search Web' button on the toolbar.
Translate: Easily translate sites into English that you may be interested in for one reason or another.
Unfortunately there is no version of the Google Toolbar forbrowsers other than Internet Explorer 5.0 and greater but hopefullythey will be adding this in the near future.
There are many more features available with the Google Toolbar. Learn more and download it here, Toolbar.google.com.
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