Thank you for downloading SEM Tools. The purpose of the toolbar is to make life easier for search engine marketers and affiliate marketers. Below is a short explanation of how to use the toolbar:

Jump to: Search box | Ad Highlighter | URL Decoder | URL Checker | Get URLs | Keyword Tools

If you find any bugs or there is a feature that you'd just love to see included then please send me Feedback .

To see what's changed in this version please see the release notes .


SEM Tools Toolbar

 

Search Box (Search Engine Links)Search Box (Search Engine Links)

Type a search into the box and click on the down arrow on the search button to the right.
Clicking on any of the search engines eg. Google-US-En will open a new tab with that page. This page will show the ads that people in the US would see if they searched on Google even if you aren't in the US yourself.

Other things to try:

Open all in one page- This button will let you browse all the different search engines in just one page.

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Use Google's Ad Test Search type- Choosing the "Ad Test" option from the Google --> Set Search Type menu will let you see the results without counting towards impressions for your ads or you paying for clicks on the ad.

Set the Search Type to "Ad Test" or "Sponsored Links" to see ads on Google without paying for the clicks or counting as impressions.

Use Google's Sponsored Links Search Type- In the same menu as "Ad Test" this option also lets you see and click ads without paying. This page also shows ads that have reached their daily budget. Read more on Google Adwords Help


Add your own search engines- Choose Settings from the menu and click on the Search Engine Links tab. Here you can add or edit any of the search engines. When you add a new engine's URL, just replace the keyword in the URL with {QUERY}.

Edit the search engines that appear in the menu.

Ad HighlighterAd Highlighter

To see this in action just go to one of these links. Google US - "car rental" or Google US - "new cars".

You'll see some links with different colors.

 Ads highlighted by tracking company on Google. By mousing over the yellow link you can see this ad is using DART Search for tracking.

If you mouse over the link you can see which company provides the tracking system.

Other things to try:

Add new ad companies- See an ad company that is not included? You can add it yourself by going to Firefox's Tools menu --> SEM Tools Options. Or you can send me the details via the feedback form and I'll add it to the next version.

URL DecoderDecode URL

You may have noticed the Ad Highlighter doesn't work on sites like Yahoo and Baidu. This is because these engines "cloak" the links on their ads so you can't see what the actual destination page is.
To get around this you can use the URL Decoder.
Go to a page like Yahoo AU - "new cars" or Yahoo AU - "cheap hotels"  and you should see some ads at the top and on the right hand side (if not then try searching on Yahoo in your country).

If you move the mouse over the title of one of the ads you should see the URL in the status bar at the bottom of the window. It looks something like http://au.wrs.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkzUAM_VJfwoAtV8L5gt.;_ylu=X3oDMTE0MTA3dW05BHNlYwNvdi10b3AEY29sbwNzazFfaW50bAR2dGl...(really long URL).
This is the link cloaking. By mousing over the links we can NOT see the destination page due to Yahoo's link cloaking.

ImageImageClick on the Decode URL button and after a short time the URL button will be coloured and some of the ads should have a coloured title as well. Move the mouse over the title and you should see the actual destination page in the status bar at the bottom.

After running Decode URL, By mousing over the links we CAN now see the destination page.

URL CheckerCheck URLs for Errors - Automatic

Paste a list of URLs into this tool and it will check for any broken links. You can paste in multiple columns of data so you can copy a campaign straight from Google Adwords Editor or Yahoo and check all the URLs at once.

It also returns the actual landing page so if you are using tracking or other redirects you can easily see where the link actually redirects to.

Paste a list of URLs and check for broken links. Also shows you the actual landing page.

Get URLsGet URLs

Grab all the URLs on the current page. You can then filter the list with the buttons on the left, select the ones you want (hold down control to select multiple links) Filter the list of links with the buttons on the left and then select which links you want on the right. and then copy using the "Copy Selected Links" button. We've copied the selected links. You can also copy all links or the current links based on the filter. Paste this list into a spreadsheet to see it in two columns.

Opening the links in a spreadsheet for further editing.

Keyword ToolsKeyword Tools

This menu has tools for creating and editing keyword lists:

  • Joining keyword lists - Join two lists of keywords together and add different match types to the result.
  • Replacing words in lists - Do a multiple find and replace on your list of keywords.
  • Grouping keywords - Easily sort your keywords into adgroups.