Here at Moz, we understand the value of top-end SEO tools — we’ve designed and built best-in-class search tools for close to 15 years. Premium tools are hugely valuable in SEO when you need higher limits, advanced functionality, stored data, or on-call support.

But for 75 percent of other tasks, a free tool often does the trick.

There are literally hundreds of free SEO tools out there, so we want to focus on only the best and most useful to add to your toolbox. Tons of people in the SEO community helped vet the SEO software in this post (see the note at the end). To be included, a tool had to meet three requirements. It must be:

  1. Widely used by the SEO community
  2. Offers above-board value + actionable data
  3. Actually, truly free

The tools are categorized by SEO function. Click on a button below to jump to that specific section.

Categories:

Analytics   Crawling/Indexing   Keyword Research   Link Tools   Local SEO   Mobile SEO   Multi-tool   On-page SEO   Research   Site Speed   WordPress

The Best Free SEO Tools

Analytics

The best tools to analyze search performance, monitor SERPs, keywords, and competitor analysis:

1. Bing Webmaster Tools

While Google Webmaster Tools gets all the glory, folks forget that Bing Webmaster offers a full suite of website and search analytics. Especially useful are keyword reports, keyword research, and crawling data.

Get it: Bing Webmaster
Also useful: Yandex.Webmaster

2. Data Studio

If you need to merge data from different sources (say Search Console and Google Analytics), visualize, and share it – this is Google Data Studio’s comfort zone. For an idea of all the SEO tasks and dashboards that you can build for free, check out these Google Data Studio Resources from Lee Hurst.

Get it: Data Studio

3. Enhanced Google Analytics Annotations

How do you know if your dip in traffic (or rise) is associated with a Google Algorithm update, or perhaps a major holiday? This is a highly-recommended Google Chrome plugin that overlays additional data on top of your analytics, so you can easily send screenshots to clients showing exactly how outside forces impacted traffic.

Get it: Enhanced Google Analytics Annotations
Alternatives: Panguin Tool, Zeo Tools

4. Google Analytics

The big kahuna, and the most widely-used web analytics package on earth. For being free, Google Analytics is surprisingly robust and plays well with other Google products, including Optimize, Search Console, and Data Studio. Some folks have privacy concerns with GA — though Google swears they don’t use this data for search rankings.

Get it: Google Analytics
Alternatives: Clicky, Open Web Analytics

5. Search Console

Probably the most useful free SEO tool on this entire list, it’s hard to imagine doing modern SEO without access to the data inside Google’s Search Console. This is the most reliable location for information on how Google crawls and ranks your site, and is one of the only places where you can get reliable keyword data.

Get it: Search Console
Helpful Add-on: Search Analytics for Sheets

6. Keyword Hero

Did somebody say (not provided)? Keyword Hero works to solve the problem of missing keyword data with lots of advanced math and machine learning. It’s not a perfect system, but for those struggling to match keywords with conversion and other on-site metrics, the data can be a valuable step in the right direction. Pricing is free up to 2000 sessions/month.

Get it: Keyword Hero

7. MozCast

The brainchild of Dr. Pete and the original Google SERP tracker, MozCast is the go-to algorithm tracker whenever there’s a big update, or not. Also useful are the SERP tracking features showing the prominence of such features as ads and knowledge panels.

Get it: MozCast
Also useful: Algoroo, Rank Risk Index, Ayima Pulse

Crawling/Indexing

Specific tools to make sure your site is crawlable and optimized.

8. Beam Us Up

If you need a free, desktop crawler, you can’t do better than Beam Us Up. While it doesn’t have as many features as Screaming Frog, it does offer 100 percent free crawling with no limits. Windows only.

Get it: Beam Us Up

9. Link Redirect Trace

A free Chrome extension, lots of SEOs recommend Link Redirect Trace as the “all-in-one redirect path analyzer.” The extension reveals information about HTTP headers, rel-canonicals, robots.txt, and basic link metrics from LinkResearchTools. The “Save Screenshot” feature is super useful too.

Get it: Link Redirect Trace

10. Redirect Path

Similar to Link Redirect Trace, Redirect Path is a nifty tool from the good folks at Ayima that shows redirect paths and header information for every URL you visit. Gotta admit, I’ve used this extension for years and it’s almost “always on” in my browser.

Get it: Redirect Path

11. Screaming Frog

Aside from having one of the best Twitter accounts of any SEO tool maker, Screaming Frog is the most popular desktop-based crawler available today. Many people don’t realize that there’s a free version that allows for up to 500 URLs per crawl. While not as fully functional as the paid version, it’s great for small projects and smaller site audits.

Get it: Screaming Frog

12. Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer

Most folks in the SEO space are familiar with Screaming Frog, but many don’t realize that the Frog also offers a standalone free/paid Log File Analyzer tool. The free version is very robust, though limited to 1000 lines.

Get it: Screaming Frog Log File Analyser

13. SEOlyzer

SEOlyzer is a log analysis tool recommended by Aleyda Solis in her very excellent SEO podcast Crawling Mondays. SEOlyzer is a terrific log analysis tool with some cool features like real-time analysis and page categorization.

Get it: SEOlyzer

14. Xenu

Gotta be honest, although Xenu has been on every “free SEO tool” list since the dawn of, no way did I think it would make this one. This Windows-based desktop crawler has been virtually unchanged over the past 10 years. That said, a lot of folks still love and use it for basic site auditing, looking for broken links, etc. Heck, I’m leaving here for sentimental reasons. Check it out.

Get it: Xenu

Keyword Research

Tools to discover what people are searching for, along with volume and competition.

15. Answer The Public

It’s hard not to love Answer The Public. The interface has an almost “Cards Against Humanity” rebel vibe to it. Regardless, if you want to generate a massive list of questions from any keyword set, this is your go-to tool.

Get it: Answer The Public

16. Keyword Explorer

If you’re not familiar with Moz’s amazing keyword research tool, you should give it a try. 500 million keyword suggestions, all the most accurate volume ranges in the industry. You also get Moz’s famous Keyword Difficulty Score along with CTR data. Moz’s free community account gives you access to 10 queries a month, with each query literally giving you up to 1000 keyword suggestions along with SERP analysis.

Get it: Keyword Explorer

17. Keyword Planner

Google’s own Keyword Planner was built for folks who buy Google ads, but it still delivers a ton of information useful for SEO keyword planning. It uses Google’s own data and has useful functions like country filtering. Be careful with metrics like competition (this is meant for paid placements) and volume — which is known to be confusing.

Get it: Keyword Planner

18. Keyword Sh****r

Yes, it’s called Keyword Sh****r. It pains me to write this. That said, it says what it does and does what it says. Type in a keyword and it, um, poops out a poop-ton of keywords.

Get it: Keyword Sh****r

19. Keywords Everywhere

An SEO favorite! Install this browser extension for Firefox or Chrome, and see keyword suggestions with volume as you cruise the internet. Works in Google Search Console as well. This one is a must-have for keyword inspiration.

Get it: Keywords Everywhere

20. Ubersuggest

Sometimes I make fun of Neil Patel because he does SEO in his pajamas. I’m probably jealous because I don’t even own pajamas. Regardless, Neil took over Ubersuggest not long ago and gave it a major overall. If you haven’t tried it in a while, it now goes way beyond keyword suggestions and offers a lot of extended SEO capabilities such as basic link metrics and top competitor pages.

Get it: Ubersuggest

Link Tools

Tools to find, evaluate, and process backlink opportunities.

21. Disavow Tool

Google makes the Disavow Tool hard to find because most site owners usually don’t need to use it. But when you do, it can be useful for getting penalties removed and some SEOs swear by it for fighting off negative SEO. If you choose to use this tool, be careful and check with this guide on disavowing the right links.

Get it: Disavow Tool

22. Link Explorer

Link Explorer is arguably the largest, highest-accuracy link index and the most accurate DA and backlink checker in the SEO world today, boasting 35 trillion links. The free account access gives you 10 queries and 50 rows of data per query every month, plus adds basic link metrics to the MozBar as you browse the web.

Get it: Link Explorer

23. Link Miner

Link Miner is a free Chrome extension developed by Jon Cooper, one of the masters of link building. Use it to quickly find broken links on each page, as well as see basic link metrics as you search Google. Simple, easy, and useful.

Get it: Link Miner

24. Detailed

Detailed is a unique type of free link research engine, developed by the marketing genius Glen Allsopp (you can find him in the comments below). Detailed focuses on what’s driving links to some of the most popular niches on the web, without the extra fluff that can make reverse engineering success a sometimes time-consuming process. Oh, he’s got a killer newsletter too.

Get it: Detailed

25. Backlink Checker

Many people don’t realize that Ahrefs offers a free backlink checker, but they do, and it’s pretty good. It does have a number limitations compared to their full-fledged paid tool. For example, you’re limited to 100 links, and you can’t search by prefix or folder, but it’s handy for those quick link checks, or if you’re doing SEO on a tight budget.

Get it: Backlink Checker

Local SEO

Free tools to optimize your on Google Maps and beyond.

26. Google My Business

Basically, this is the #1, must-have tool for Local SEO — especially if you live in a market served by Google. It allows you to claim your business, manage listing information, and respond to reviews — among other things. Claiming your business profile forms the foundation of most other local SEO activities, so it’s an essential step.

Get it: Google My Business

27. Google Review Link Generator

The Google Review Link Generator by Whitespark solves a simple problem – how do you give your customers a URL to leave a Google review for your business? Reviews drive rankings, but Google doesn’t easily provide this. This generator makes it easy.

Get it: Google Review Link Generator

28. Local Search Results Checker

One of the hardest parts of Local SEO is figuring out rankings from any location — especially when Google stubbornly wants to serve results from the location you’re in. Bright Local solves this with a quick local ranking tool that can virtually drop you into any location on earth to check actual local rankings.

Get it: Local Search Results Checker

29. Moz Local Check Business Listing

How consistent is your business information across the local search ecosystem? Moz Local lets you quickly check how your business shows up across the web in the major data aggregators that Google and others use to rank local search results. Very handy to understand your strengths and weaknesses.

Get it: Moz Local Check Business Listing

Mobile SEO

Tools to optimize your website in Google’s mobile-first world.

30. Mobile First Index Checker

Mobile versions of websites often differ significantly from their desktop versions. Because Google has switched to mobile-first indexing, it’s important that major elements (links, structured data, etc.) match on both versions. A number of tools will check this for you, but Zeo’s is probably the most complete.

Get it: Mobile First Index Checker

31. Mobile SERP Test

It’s amazing how mobile search results can vary by both location AND device. MobileMoxie’s mobile SERP test lets you compare devices side-by-side for any location, down to specific addresses.

Get it: Mobile SERP Test

32. Mobile-Friendly Test

The gold standard for determining if your page meets Google’s mobile-friendly requirements. If your page passes the test, then Google counts it as mobile-friendly, which is a bonafide (albeit small) ranking factor. If your page isn’t mobile-friendly, it will give you specific areas to address.

Get it: Mobile-Friendly Test

Multi-tool

Free SEO tools that have so many functions, they have their own special category.

33. Chrome DevTools

The sheer number of SEO tasks you can perform—for free—with Chrome DevTools is simply staggering. From JavaScript auditing to speed to On-Page SEO, some of the best features are hidden away but totally awesome. Need some specific ways to use it for SEO? Check out these resources here, here, and here.

Get it: Chrome DevTools

34. Marketing Miner

Marketing Miner has a low profile in the United States, but it’s one of the best-kept secrets of Eastern Europe. If you need to pull a lot of SERP data, rankings, tool reports, or competitive analysis, Marketing Miner does the heavy lifting for you and loads it all into convenient reports. Check out this list of miners for possible ideas. It’s a paid tool, but the free version allows to perform a number of tasks.

Get it: Marketing Miner

35. MozBar

One of the original SEO toolbars, the MozBar has seen significant upgrades over the years. Log in with a free Moz account and get link metrics as you browse the web, perform on-page analysis, and SERP analysis. The free version is super-useful by itself, while Pro users get additional functionality like advanced keyword suggestions.

Get it: MozBar

36. SEMrush

Like Moz, SEMrush offers a full suite of all-in-one SEO tools, and they have a free account option that works well if you only work with a single website, or only need a quick peek at top-level data. The free account level gives you access to one “project” which includes basic site auditing, as well as limited keyword and domain reporting.

Get it: SEMrush

37. SEO Minion

SEO Minion is a very popular Chrome extension that goes beyond most SEO toolbars. Some of the quick functions it performs include analyzing on-page SEO, check broken links, Hreflang checks, a SERP preview tool, and a nifty Google search location simulator. Definitely worth trying out.

Get it: SEO Minion

38. SEOquake

Out of all the SEO toolbars available on the market, SEOquake is probably the most powerful, and comes with a plethora of configuration options — so you can configure it to adjust to your SEO needs. Aside from offering a boatload of data for every URL you visit, you can also perform basic on-page audits, compare domains, and export your data.

Get it: SEOquake

39. Sheets for Marketers

Sheets for Marketers isn’t a tool per se, but a website that contains over 100+ free templates to perform a huge number of tasks using Google Sheets. Find powerful free sheets for everything including competitive analysis, site audits, scraping, keyword research, and more. This is a website for your bookmarks.

Get it: Sheets for Marketers

40. Small SEO Tools

Small SEO Tools is a favorite among old-time SEO. It comprises a collection of over 100 original SEO tools. Each tool performs a very specific task, hence the name “small”. What’s great about this collection is that in addition to more traditional toolsets like backlink and keyword research, you’ll find an abundance of hard-to-find and very specific tools such as proxy tools, pdf tools, and even JSON tools.

Get it: Small SEO Tools

41. Varvy

Varvy offers a suite of free website audit tools from the folks at Internet Marketing Ninjas. Most of the checks are of the on-page type concerning crawling and best practices. Varvy also offers separate stand-alone tools for page speed and mobile SEO. Overall, this is a good quick tool to start an SEO audit and to perform basic checklist tasks in a hurry.

Get it: Varvy
Alternatives: SEO PowerSuite, CanIRank

On-page SEO

Tools to help you maximize your content potential at the page level.

42. Natural Language API Demo

While there is some debate over how actionable Google’s Natural Language API is for SEO, there is no denying it’s a cool tool with lots of advanced analysis. The free demo allows you to analyze the text of a single page at a time and lets you see how a search engine would view entities, sentiment analysis, syntax, and categorization.

Get it: Natural Language API
See also: Advanced SEO Strategies using Natural Language Processing

43. Rich Results Test

Did you implement review rating stars in your JSON-LD, and want to see if your markup is valid for Google’s Rich Results? Getting a passing grade doesn’t mean your page will automatically display rich results in the SERPs, but think of it as the cost of admission (the cost being free, of course.)

Get it: Rich Results Test

44. Structured Data Testing Tool

Bookmark, bookmark, bookmark this page. Google’s Structured Data Testing tool is essential for not only troubleshooting your own structured data but performing competitive analysis on your competitor’s structured data as well. Pro Tip: You can edit the code within the tool to troubleshoot and arrive at valid code.

Get it: Structured Data Testing Tool

45. Tag Manager

On the surface, Google Tag Manager serves a simple purpose of allowing you to inject “tags” (such as Google Analytics) into your HTML. Beyond that, advanced users can leverage Tag Manager for a host of SEO functions. While Google recommends against using Tag Manager to insert important elements like structured data, it remains useful for a ton of SEO-related activities.

Get it: Tag Manager

46. View Rendered Source

This simple JavaScript auditing tool does one thing, and it does it very well. View Rendered Source is a free Chrome plugin that allows you to easily see the fully rendered DOM of any URL, and compare it to the original HTML. Great for JavaScript auditing and troubleshooting.

Get it: View Rendered Source

Research

Cools free tools for competitive, historical, and technological analysis.

47. BuzzSumo

As an SEO research tool, BuzzSumo is awesome. Its Chrome extension is one of the few tools available that deliver reliable social share count estimates for any piece of content. You don’t get as much data with a free account, but you still get access to top content and trending data. One of our favorite tools.

Get it: BuzzSumo

48. Hunter

Hunter is a popular email search tool, and definitely the most popular free email finder. Use it to find the email address associated with any company or individual, and verify any email address you already have. 50 free queries/month before paid plans kick in.

Get it: Hunter
Also popular: Viola Nobert

49. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is like competitor analysis on steroids. You can research your competitor’s traffic, top pages, engagement, marketing channels, and more. The free offering is limited to five results per metric, but it’s often enough to grab a quick data point.

Get it: SimilarWeb

50. Wappalyzer

There are lots of tools that help you analyze what technology stacks a website runs on, but Wappalyzer is an SEO favorite. It’s 100 percent free (unless you want advanced reporting) and will instantly tell you what technology a site is using. For example, are they using Yoast or All In One SEO Pack?

Get it: Wappalyzer

51. Wayback Machine

Gotta be honest, I personally use the Wayback Machine 2–3 times a week. It’s perfect for uncovering historical data. You can even find a trove of historical robots.txt files archived. There are a ton of other SEO uses for Wayback Machine you may find useful. 100 percent free.

Get it: Wayback Machine

52. Bulk Domain Availability Checker

To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this tool before, but several SEOs who regularly purchase domains praised it highly. It seems particularly popular with the black hat/PBN group, but the tool itself has white hat SEO legitimacy as well. Simply input up to 20,000 domains at a time, and it will quickly tell you if they are available. Beats the heck out of typing them in one at a time using Godaddy.

Get it: Bulk Domain Availability Checker

Site Speed

Tools to speed up your site in order to improve engagement, increase conversions, and rank higher.

53. Cloudflare

There are so many good things to say about Cloudflare, it’s difficult to know what to include here. Aside from a free CDN to speed up your site, it also allows for easy DNS management, and 100 percent free DDoS protection. You can run on a paid plan forever, but if you’re ready to upgrade, the pro features are super cool and amazingly affordable.

Get it: Cloudflare

54. GTmetrix

GTmetrix is one of many webpage speed performance tests that SEOs love to use. It provides familiar reports such as PageSpeed, YSlow, and Waterfalls, as well as automatically visualizing historic data for each page it analyses.

Get it: GTmetrix

55. Lighthouse

Lighthouse is Google’s open-source speed performance tool. It’s also the most up-to-date, especially in terms of analyzing the performance of mobile pages and PWAs. Google not only recommends using Lighthouse to evaluate your page performance, but there is also speculation they use very similar evaluations in their ranking algorithms.

Get it: Lighthouse

56. Page Speed Insights

Page Speed Insights is another Google tool built on top of Lighthouse, with one key added metric: Field Data. Field Data uses metrics collected by the Chrome User Experience Report so you can see how your page performs with real users across the globe. Not every page has data, but it’s super useful when it does.

Get it: Page Speed Insights

57. SpeedMonitor.io

If manually logging into a speed tool to check your performance each day isn’t your thing, consider SpeedMonitor.io. It uses Lighthouse data to gauge performance, then tracks it over time and stores the results — all for free. You can even add competitor tracking and on-demand audits.

Get it: SpeedMonitor.io

58. WebpageTest

Webpage test is another performance tool similar to GTMetrix. It breaks down performance into easy-to-understand grades, along with some of the most detailed performance reports found anywhere.

Get it: WebpageTest

WordPress

To be honest, there are literally hundreds of WordPress plugins that can be helpful for SEO. You almost always want a “general” SEO plugin, and we’ve listed two below. For others, you have a lot of options, but this list from Kinsta is a good place to start.

59. Rank Math

The “new” kid on the WordPress SEO plugin block, RankMath is quickly earning a cult following among certain SEO pros. It’s fully functional and comes with some cool features like built-in redirection, which means needing to install fewer plugins or pay for upgrades. Worth checking out.

Get it: Rank Math

60. Yoast SEO

Yoast is the “name” in WordPress SEO. The most trusted name, the most installed (30 million sites) and often, the most innovative. With the help of our friend Jono Alderson, they’ve created some amazing advances in the delivery of structured data. I personally use Yoast on most of my WordPress sites, and they are obviously highly recommended.

Get it: Yoast SEO
Alternatives: All in One SEO Pack, SEOPress

Bonus: Free Google Sheet of All 60 Tools

We’ve included a Google Sheet containing all 55 tools listed above. You can make a copy of the sheet and file away for your personal use, or share with your team.

Get the Free SEO Tool Sheet

Special Thanks

A lot of smart SEOs deserve credit for helping out with the recommendations in this post. A number of folks contributed suggestions from Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.

A comprehensive list of SEO tools and resources is maintained by Saijo George. It’s continually updated and well maintained. You can find it here.

p.s. While these are 60 of the best free SEO tools, it’s by no means a complete list! What are some of your favorite free SEO tools? Let us know in the comments.