Whether you’re an agency or an individual, signing up for SEOMoz’s suite of search engine optimisation tools is one of the best things you can do for your business.

As one of the biggest names in the SEO software business, it’s rare for SEOMoz to give their users anything other than truly exceptional applications.

We manage a wide range of client accounts, and having a full suite of software apps on our side is always helpful. Like SEOMoz’s other apps, the Fresh Web Explorer is a huge help to our day-to-day operations.

Read on to learn about how the tool helps us generate awesome results for our clients.

What exactly is the Fresh Web Explorer?

For years, SEO experts have been tracking brand mentions and press coverage using alerts from and a variety of third-party providers. It’s a fairly reliable way to track press coverage, but not without its flaws.

The Fresh Web Explorer is a simple tool for PR managers and SEOs to keep track of where and when their website is being linked to or talked about. As the name would suggest, it’s a fresh index of web mentions, with the content it highlights only ever going back four weeks into the past.

Using the Fresh Web Explorer to track down link-free website mentions:

Isn’t it annoying when a journalist mentions your website without adding a link to their article? The Fresh Web Explorer tracks both links and mentions, making it an easy process to get in touch with journalists to request an outbound link from their article or blog post.

Enter your URL or keyword into the tool and you’ll be presented with a summary of recent links, mentions, and discussions about your brand. If you spot any sites that are talking about you but aren’t linking, pass them on to your PR team to email them for some inbound link action.

Using the Fresh Web Explorer to keep an eye on your competitors:

There’s no shame in spying on your competitors. We all do it. The Fresh Web Explorer makes it easy to keep track of your competitors’ latest links, blog mentions, and other visible online assets.

Plug one of your competitors’ domains into the tool and watch as their latest links, press releases, and blog posts pop up. From here, you can add interesting sources to a spreadsheet for a follow-up, regarding your own link building campaigns.

Using the Fresh Web Explorer to prevent negative SEO attacks:

If you’re in an ultra-competitive industry where negative SEO is the norm, using the Fresh Web Explorer to keep track of your brand could be a good idea. By keeping an eye on your brand mentions, you can quickly spot bad links before they multiply.

From here, you can quickly disavow bad links or contact the webmaster in question to request a link removal. Cut the roots off a negative SEO campaign before it grows and you’ll never have to worry about bad inbound links or nasty webspam again.

Using the Fresh Web Explorer to keep track of your link building:

Instead of relying on clumsy, user-unfriendly spreadsheets or unreliable servers for your link building archives, use the Fresh Web Explorer to keep a permanent record of the links you’ve built for clients or your own websites.

The tool contains a record of recent brand mentions, inbound links, and other data that’s crucial for managing an SEO campaign. If you’re stuck with an unreadable spreadsheet, simply export your data from the Fresh Web Explorer for a bird’s eye view of your recent link building efforts.

There’s always a buzz around the SEO community when SEOMoz release a new tool- the question is, are you making the most of it for your marketing campaigns?

The author of this article is Craig of , the experts in search marketing services. If you want people to search for your business, we make it our business that they find you. Make the internet work for you with our help!