Guys shameless plug here I know, but I seen this thread in the related threads secton and had to take a look. I use my own tools which I have written to allow me to do the things I need to do. The are available on
seo tools | search engine optimization tools | search optimisation scripts
A couple of the more useful ones are
=========================
Anchor Text Checker
Discover what words people are using to link to your website or blog. Knowing this is very useful as it will enable you to know what keyphrases or variations of keyphrases you should use during your next few article marketing or reciprocal link campaigns. Remember an overly unnatural domainance of your main keyphrase can trigger alarm bells over at the
GooglePlex. This is not surprisingly a server intensive script and thus I have experienced some timeouts with it in the past so please be patient and go open another firefox tab while your waiting. If you do experience timeouts or other issues please let me know.
PageRank Search
The PageRank Search tool was one of the first SEO tools I developed for this new section of the AKA Marketing.com site and I was well proud. Basically the tool can be used to run standard and advanced queries against the Google search index, the results of which can be viewed as standard (with PageRank) or in order of PageRank with the site with the highest PageRank always ranking 1st. A maximum of 50 results can be returned, the more results you request, the longer the script will take to execute.
PageRank Distribution
The PageRank Distribution tool can be used to see how PageRank is spread over the top 20 SERPS for queries against the Google search index. Enter up to three different but related queries in the boxes below and the generated line chart will allow you to compare the difficulty (in terms of PageRank) of achieving top rankings for these queries against each other. The chart opens in a new window.
Keyword Suggestions
Targeting the right keywords isn't exactly half the battle but it is a very important part of any search engine optimization campaign. This keyword suggestions tool uses information from the Overture and Google databases to help you get the right balance between choosing very popular keywords and choosing words with less competition. Remember there's no point in going for the hugely popular keywords if there's just too much competition to realistically stand a chance of ranking in the top 20.
Backlink Finder
The Backlink Finder tool can be used to find potential link exchange partners. We all know that Google has diminished the value of reciprocal links, that does not mean that they do not count though and every little helps. It is believed that Yahoo and MSN still treat all links the same regardless if they are reciprocal in nature or not and besides many people are getting creative and using what's known as three way reciprocal links to still get maximum benefit from Google.
I got a free copy of IPB which I use for onpage optimisation for MSN and for checking my rankings.