Market Samurai
Posted by admin on Friday, June 11, 2010 · 8 Comments 
Market
Samurai is no
doubt one of the
most popular
marketing tools in
the Internet
marketing community.
This multi-purpose
tool is the start of
most projects to
many, including me.
Despite being in a
constant beta stage,
the software built
on Adobe AIR (which
makes it available
on all computer
platforms, including
PC, Mac and Linux)
is reliable and
often updated via an
auto-update feature.
Note: Market Samurai free trial is available
To begin the
in-depth review,
let’s look at
the currently
available features:
In addition to these
8 modules,
there’s one
“coming
soon” module
for Adwords.
Rank
Checker
This module is
for tracking your
rankings in Google,
Yahoo! and Bing. You
can track unlimited
number of domains
and unlimited number
of keywords (up to
top 1000 results per
SERP). It tracks the
position in SERPs
(broad match and
phrase match
keywords), PageRank,
and backlinks. The
data for each
keyword, domain and
url is displayed in
a table, historical
data is displayed in
charts.Since this is my
most used feature of
Market Samurai I do
have some caveats.
It works very well
and is easy to use
with few keywords,
but it gets very
slow and cumbersome
when the number of
your tracked
keywords grows.
Additionally, I
would like to see
multi-project
management in one
place, rather than
having to open each
project separately
just to update the
data (it’s a
tedious task when
you have many
projects). Other
than that, it works
pretty well.
Keyword
Research
This is the main
module and where the
tool has started, it
does what you would
expect from a
keyword tool. In
this regard I
wouldn’t say
that Market Samurai
is any special as
compared to other
popular tools, such
as Keyword Elite. It
allows you to enter
the seed keywords
and get a list of
keywords from Google
that you can further
analyze.
It provides a wealth
of information about
keywords, including
estimated SEO
traffic, estimated
AdWrods traffic and
CPC, SEO and PPC
competition,
commercial
viability, SEO and
Adwords value, and
it allows you to
filter keywords by
all of this data.
It’s easy to
select individual
keywords and use
them as a seed in a
separate tab.
SEO
Competition
This module is the
extension to keyword
analysis for SEO.
This is one of the
stronger sides of
Market Samurai in
the depth of
analysis it
provides. Here you
get the breakdown of
the first page of
results in Google
for your keyword
with the competitive
data, such as
PageRank, domain
age, different types
of backlinks,
keyword metrics and
cache info. The
competitiveness of
results is indicated
by colors (green to
red – easiest
to hardest) for each
data value.
For further analysis
you can examine
PageRank and anchor
text of the
backlinks of each
result. Not only
does it give you the
number of high PR
backlinks but also
where those
backlinks come from
specifically and
what anchor text
they have. You can
see the anchor text
distribution as
well.
This gives you an
exact blueprint of
backlinks that your
competitors have,
which you can
replicate to achieve
similar or better
results.
Domains
A recently added
feature for easily
finding new,
expiring and dropped
domain names. To
find aged domains
you need a
DomainFace account.
Monetization
Allows you to
quickly find
affiliate programs
from Amazon,
Clickbank,
Commission Junction
and PayDotCom
affiliate networks.
It allows you to
filter offers by
keyword, commission,
categories and
language.
Find
Content
Allows you to find
content in some of
the biggest article
directories, blogs,
YouTube, Flickr,
news sites. For each
page it finds, it
gives you such
information as how
many copies have
already been
published on the
web, the PR and
backlinks to the
page, keyword
density, and date
published. For
directories like
EzineArticles, it
even extracts the
article in a ready
to publish state.
It’s a handy
tool to find content
for your site.
Publish
Content
A publishing tool
with WordPress and
WordPress
integration. Here
you can add your
WordPress blogs and
WP Direct accounts,
and manage/publish
the content you have
found.
Promotion
This module allows
you to find backlink
opportunities in
such sources as
popular Web 2.0
properties, blogs
and forums. For each
page it finds for
your keywords, it
shows the data for
PR, backlinks,
whether the links
are nofollow, and if
they use pingbacks.
Now that I’ve
gone through all the
modules, let’s
sum it up with the
strengths and
weaknesses of the
software that I can
see from my
experience with it.
Market
Samurai’s
Strengths
The biggest
strength’s of
Market Samurai in my
opinion are its SEO
research features.
Coincidentally I use
it mostly for that
so perhaps my
opinion is a little
biased, but looking
at the features at a
glance, you can tell
that it’s this
tool’s focus.
Its ability to
provide aggregated
and in depth
competition data is
a valuable tool for
SEO assessment.
I can also mention
the wealth of
features that it
has, as well as
constant
improvements that
the guys bring to
the table. When
I’ve bought it
almost 1.5 years ago
it was just a
keyword research
tool, it’s
gone beyond that,
even though its main
focus is still
keyword research.
Also worth to
mention the fact
that all updates
came free, I only
ever had to pay once
when I bought it.
There’s also a
trial version with
the main modules
available and a 30
day money back
guarantee after you
buy it.
Market
Samurai’s
Weaknesses
As much as I like
it, there are still
some thing that I
think MS lacks.
First of all,
there’s a
considerable
slowness of the
sooftware with big
amounts of data,
especially on slower
computers. I think
speed is something
to improve upon.
Also, I think it
would do with a
better project
organization. Every
project you create
is a file that you
have to open each
time from the hard
drive. The list of
recent projects
helps a little but
its capacity runs
out quickly. And
since you
can’t work
with more than one
project at a time,
working with many of
them is a hustle.
I’d like to
see some
multi-project
organization,
especially with
regards to the rank
tracker.
Other than that,
it’s a great
software, I’d
give it 9.5/10.
July 14th, 2010 at 8:10 am
I have to agree with you about the speed of Market Samurai. The trouble is that it has so much data to collect I can’t see how it can get much faster than it already is. But even with this “weakness” it still out performs the rest of the competition and is a tool I can’t see myself being without. I haven’t seen anything else that gives the competition results as in-depth or combines the ad making and monetizing.
Just noticed you have included “Find Content” twice!
July 20th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Oops, one should say Publish Content, of course. Thanks.
July 29th, 2010 at 1:55 am
Thorough review. I learned about this software in DP Forum. I’ll definitely check it out. You shown that it does much more than I dreamed it might.
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Very nice overview. I think MS helps a lot in market research.
August 24th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Well, I just found out this new Internet Marketing tool and was wondering whether is it effective or not? Then I researched google to find out the review here. Though I like the review, I don’t understand, why WOT has given a red mark to this website? Is there any malware hidden in this site or just WOT reviewers on the wrong side. Somebody please explain?
August 24th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Hi Palla,
I haven’t heard of WOT before, had to Google it. I don’t know what’s up with that, nor do I care. There’s not any malware or anything on this site, I’m sure of that. Browse around and do your own judgment.
August 29th, 2010 at 5:01 am
Hi Palla,
I have been using Market Samurai for over a year now and I still have NOT found any thing else that comes near it! If you are going into the IM business, I suggest you get Market Samurai. You be glad you did…trust me
Market Samurai RULES!!
September 1st, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Thanks for the information. I had a friend recommend Market Samurai to me today. I think i’m going to give it a shot!