Editor’s note: This post is an oldie, but a goodie. It was originally published March 2010 and it warranted an update. Do you have any favorite Chrome extensions for search engine optimization or blogging? Share in the comments below!
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I’ve converted, but my first experience with Google Chrome occurred in 2009 and it was not a positive one. It was disappointing and frustrating. However, after fighting with Firefox, which crashed many times daily and demanded updates that slowed browsing and constantly interrupted me, I gave Chrome a second chance.
My biggest concern was the lack of extensions (“plugins” for Firefox users), but after about an hour on the Google Chrome Extensions site, that was no longer a problem. So, I’ve compiled a list of the best Chrome Extensions for SEO and a few other can’t-live-without extensions (in no particular order).
1. SEO for Chrome
Includes page, backlink, traffic and rank stats, and more.
2. SEO Site Tools
Includes internal and external page data, social media stats, server information and more.
3. Google Similar Pages beta (by Google)
Shows pages similar to the Web page you’re currently browsing.
4. Domain Details
Shows domain, website and server details at a glance.
5. PageRank Status
Shows Google PageRank on your toolbar.
6. SEOquake
Shows Google PageRank, Alexa rank and nofollow links, among other paramaters.
7. Speed Tracer (by Google)
Shows page performance data.
8. Flag for Chrome
Get domain, page and server data as well as PageRank and the hosting country’s flag icon.
9. Schema Explorer
View Schema.org formatted microdata.
10. Whois+
Get Whois, DNS, Email and Ping information for the current domain.
11. Firebug Lite
Great for front-end inspection of the Web page you’re browsing.
12. Pendule
Web developer tools for Chrome.
13. IMG Inspector
Converts image links to a full gallery with thumbnails. Lightbox-style.
14. Image Preview
Replaces image and video links with a lightbox preview popup.
15. IE Tab
Display web pages using IE in a tab.
16. MeasureIt!
Draw a ruler to measure any Web page element.
17. Majestic SEO Backlink Analyzer
View the backlink information for any web page.
18. Proxy Switchy!
Load the page through a proxy.
19. Mozbar
Switch proxy setting with one click.
[download & install now]
20. Session Buddy
Chrome session management.
21. Session Manager
Save sessions of your opened tabs to quickly re-open whenever you like.
22. ShowIP
Displays your current IP address.
23. AutoPagerize
Auto-loads the next page as you scroll through a Web page. For example: Google SERPs, Delicious bookmarks, etc.
24. Evernote Web Clipper
Save interesting stuff you see on the Web into your Evernote account for use on the Web or mobile.
25. My Shortcuts
Quickly access your Google Apps, or custom URLs, that you frequently use.
26. Resolution Test
Test web pages in different resolution settings or set your own resolution.
27. FlashBlock
Block all Flash on all pages or use the whitelist manager to allow certain pages to display Flash.
28. Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google)
Preview PDFs, PowerPoint documents and other docs in Google Docs viewer.
29. WOT (Web of Trust)
A safe browsing tool that warns of malicious sites.
30. AutoPager Chrome
Automatically loads the next page for multi-page sites by just scrolling with your mouse.
31. Web2PDFConverter
Converts any web page to PDF.
32. Auto Copy
Highlight text and it’s automatically copied to your clipboard.
33. Gestures for Chrome
Create mouse gestures to perform certain tasks.
34. Clickable Links
URLs and Emails displayed in text will be automatically converted to a link.
35. Tab Switch Plus
Find tabs in this vertical tab list and easily switch to new tabs or close immediately.
36. Xmarks Bookmarks Sync
Backup and sync your bookmarks across computers and browsers.
37. Google Translate
Translate Web pages into your language of choice.
38. Autocomplete = on
Use to remember your passwords. Can be turned off.
39. RoboForm Lite
Manage your passwords with RoboForm.
40. LastPass
Manage your passwords with LastPass.
41. RightLink
Right-click on links will automatically open the link in a new tab.
42. goo.gl URL Shortener
Shorten URLs with goo.gl
43. StayFocusd
Limit the amount of time you spend on certain sites so you can focus.
44. New Tabs Always Last
Always opens new tabs to the far right of your toolbar. The default in Chrome is to open new tabs directly to the right of the current tab.
45. Search Box
Easily search in multiple search engines.
46. Feedly
Organize your feeds into a magazine-style start page.
47. Search the Current Site
Performs a site search for the current domain rather than just a page find search.
48. Buffer
Share content to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.
49. RemindMe
Set yourself reminders that can be synced on multiple machines.
50. Tabs to the Front!
Opens new tabs and brings them to the front for immediate attention.
51. Aviary Screen Capture
Take a screen capture and edit it immediately with Aviary tools.
52. GooEdit
An image editor that lives within the browser. Upload, edit and save pictures.
53. Pixlr Grabber
Grab the entire page or just a section and save it to your desktop or edit using Pixlr tools.
54. Webpage & WebCam Screenshot
Capture the whole page or sections of the page in a JPG format.
55. Related Content by Zemanta
Support for many blogging platforms: WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, etc. Associates images, video and other content to be inserted into your blog post as you write.
56. bit.ly
Easily shorten and share links with Bit.ly.
57. Silver Bird
Follow your timelines on Twitter and interact with your account.
58. Shareaholic for Google Chrome
Share the Web page on your favorite social network.
59. Digg for Chrome
Easily Digg the latest story and find out what is being discovered at the moment.
60. StumbleUpon
Manage your Stumbles and discover new pages.
61. Del.icio.us Extension
One-click submission to bookmark your current Web page.
62. Delicious Tools
Manage your Delicious account, use a pop-up window for tagging and keyboard shortcuts are available.
63. Chromicious
Syncs between Chrome and your Delicious account.
64. My Alerts
Receive alerts for Twitter, Google, Backtweets, etc.
65. Facebook for Chrome
Quickly post status updates and view your wall and news feeds.
66. HootSuite Hootlet
Manage your Twitter accounts easily. Based on the Firefox plugin.
67. Search on Yelp
Find local businesses, and the results open in a new tab.
68. Auto HD for YouTube
Will automatically redirect to the HD version, if available, and play as normal.
69. Incredible StartPage
Customize your start page to include shortcuts and recover closed tabs. Also take notes as you browse.
70. Chrome Reader
Subscribe to feeds, in Google Reader, from the address bar.
71. Last.fm free music player
Who says you don’t need music to do SEO and blog?
During the writing of this post, I had several windows & tabs open with all of these extensions and more running simultaneously. I installed plugins and managed to tweet through Tweetdeck as well. Nothing slowed down. Nothing froze. I experienced no problems. That’s huge compared to Firefox or IE. Be aware that extensions are not always published by the brand represented (e.g. Flickr, Delicious, Yelp, etc.).
I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few so please comment with your favorite extensions to share with everybody.
You have over 70 extensions and don’t see slowing or crashes? Yet again, Google moves into a space and destroys the competition.
Really a great collection and thank for providing each and every thing with links! It really is too good!
I didn’t know there were so many tools for Chrome,
and i was in search of switching for Firefox, now having installed all the tools, i think it would be my last day of Firefox.
Thanks for sharing all the info above.
I love it! I’ve known that you are the extension king for quite a while, but 71? I didn’t even know there were that many Chrome extensions available now!
Thanks Ash, you’re the best!
Thanks for the time spent compiling this list. Some good SEO extensions in there.
The effort is much appreciated.
B
Thanks for this great list. Was just debating last night about whether to stick with Chrome, and you’ve given me many reasons to stay. The Chrome SEO extensions are just right!
The only one that I find useful is Clickable Links.
Thanks for all the comments. I’m glad it was helpful.
@erdos I’m really surprised you only found one of use. Maybe you don’t work in web development, web design or SEO? Anyway, glad you found one.
Good list you have put together here. I already use quite a few of these but there is some I haven’t come across.
Ash, I am sending KISSES for this! Because of you, I set Chrome as my default browser a week ago. I’ve been struggling and waiting for this post. Now I can turn Chrome into a productivity tool. I owe you!
I went hog wild with extensions when I first started using Chrome, but I’m concerned that with 12-20 extensions running, they’ll decrease my computer’s efficiency- what’s your experience with memory usage for these extensions?
Thanks for compiling a great list..The Delicious extensions were especially appreciated.
Searchengineman
Been using Google Chrome for just over a month now and cannot be more delighted. Firefox was burning up resources on my old lap top like a California Wild fire.
Superb list, frankly, I did not know they had all these tools available, all the reviews were good I read, but the draw back was the extension, ah frankly I don’t know what you would really need other, after this list.
again, great informative list, thanks for posting.
@Mark Menconi Jr. – I’ve not seen any decrease in speed. I’ve installed Chrome on all 6 of my computers and run different plugins on each. They all run famously.
@marcelino – burning up resources like a California Wild fire? LMAO
Only thing missing is a Google Analytics extension like KVI’s ‘Better Google Analytics’ for Firefox. Someone needs to get on that since KVI stopped supporting it and it no longer works with the newest Firefox version.
It was a real godsend back in the day…
Ash,
Great list. I had a bunch of these already installed, but there were many I didn’t.
One thing I don’t really care for is how Chrome just throws all the buttons next to the address bar. For one you lose the search box, and I just think it looks clunky. I would rather have them in a status bar at the bottom.
@Fitz I agree. There was a plugin for Google Analytics checker but I didn’t find it useful enough to include in the list. I’m kind of surprised there isn’t something directly from Google already.
@ThomAllen I feel the same. But I think Google will figure that out. If you have the dev kit installed it allows you to drag-n-drop extensions for ordering or choose them from a drop-down list so. I haven’t installed that yet but you can read more in this thread:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=6b989b0d81ecd7a8&hl=en
Ash, since this post I’ve been trying to convince people to switch to Chrome. I agree that it is seriously a faster web browser. If you take a look at this browser testing experiment, Chrome wins: http://a.deveria.com/caniuse/
Currently, only Firefox and IE are used at most universities. I’m hoping they soon add Chrome to our available browsers (at BYU).
Great list Ash – that must have taken a fair bit of time to compile, appreciated.
Great post, now testing some of ‘your’ extensions. Thanks a lot!
Why do you make me switch?
Hey Ash,
Your 47. Search the Current Site link is going to Feedly instead of https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jliolpcnkmolaaecncdfeofombdekjcp
Thanks for the tools, i use chrome it so much quicker than other browsers
@Eamon I fixed that link #47. Thanks for the heads up.
You are more than welcome… I know how much goes into these… would you do me a favor and give Taylor Hicks (aka. Alex) a big hug from me? After you do it though, just say it was because,,, no explanation will be needed. Also I would like to hear his rants.here from here on on… VP’s can do that as well Alex
I would also recommend all these, besides the first one. The first one has sometimes either crashed chrome or has been to big where the list has went bigger than my screen.
Thanks, Joshua. I haven’t experienced that before but it’s good to know. I’ll have to test on my 10.1 inch laptop.
Thank you Sir for providing such cool stuff in an efficient and easy way. I never thought there could be found so many extensions and plugins for Google Chrome as like many others I was just in search of updating my FF with new add-ons.
Hello…………
Thanks for this great list. Was just debating last night about whether to stick with Chrome
Thanks a lot from Greece.
when i wrote SEO Site Tools i made it super lightweight… its basically a little JavaScript file and it does a ton of stuff.. no slowdown involved
It’s a great tool. I use it every day. Thanks for making it available.
A great article! I converted to Chrome a while back and getting some extensions to rival my Firefox experience is important.
Thank you for a geat post. Up until now I was using firefox.
Can anyone recommend a free plugin / browser that would quickly give me the back link details of competitor websites and or email addresses for hose backlinks. I have seen paid software that can do which obviously would help in link building as yo don’t have to go searsching for contacts details or emailing webmaster@ which is very impersonal.
thanks again for hte post, if anyone can help that would be great.
your tools are a great help, I find chrome to be much better and quicker than other browsers , im sticking with chrome.
Yeah, me too. It’s not perfect but it’s considerably better than the alternatives. Glad you found some good extensions.
After seeing these excellent SEO extensions, I think I’ll give Chrome another chance as well. Thanks for the info.
Well, that was comprehensive!
I’ll think about firing up Chrome this evening. I tried it for a while and then drifted back to Firefox, just for the plugins.
I still haven’t jumped over to Chrome yet. I am hooked to Firefox out of habit mostly. I didn’t realize that Chrome had so many plugins. Have you found that Chrome is really quicker than Firefox? Do you use Chrome exclusively now? If so, what are your top 3 reasons for doing so?
Chrome is really quicker than Firefox.
Top 3 reasons?
Dude. Top 1 reason:
Chrome is really quicker than Firefox.
Color Pick.
Gotta have me some Color Pick extension.
I am using Firefox, but I think that Chrome has big potentials now.
I have been using Chrome for over a year. I find it to be the best browser. I love the search bar. I was not aware of all the extensions. Great article it is very helpful.
Wow, what a great list, thanks for sharing!
Here’s a cool extension I found that will let you change your IP address. It seems to work really well:
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/caehdcpeofiiigpdhbabniblemipncjj
Honestly I was not concerned there were that many Chrome extensions available… I am gonna live Firefox. Great article!
Great Least, even though I found it late (article was posted back in March). Thumbs up!
Thank you Ash Buckles .. you’ve made life online much easier ~ Cheers
They have really worked hard to have great plugins for this browser. They have developed a few more then are found in this list. Thank you for the article.
Oh my! There is so much I don’t know where to start. I have like 2 of those products.
This is very useful, I just installed Chrome but I don’t use it often, I am not aware that there are also extensions available. Thanks.
I must say that this is AMAZING. My only $0.02 here would be to suggest the following web developer suggestion. This one works REALLY well for me and it is the closest one to the FF plugin that I have found https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bfbameneiokkgbdmiekhjnmfkcnldhhm
Followed a comment on Matt Cutts blog to here. Glad to find this list, I might just switch to Chrome now. FF is too slow.
Awesome! Totally wanted all of these extensions, just didn’t know where to find them. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing all of these extensions. It will make things much easier for me to work in Chrome as I got fed up with FF problems.
Great stuff
I used it a year ago and had bad experience and shifter back to firefox but with these new tools I think Google Chrome will be interested to work
Another great one is WordPress Stats chrome extension
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/kfkplpbeijhlpnlccijpjpggabgmbopg
SEO Quake is the best tool on here. However, it slows down Chrome big time. It sometimes crashes my browser, but I use it anyways. I guess it is worth the frustration, because I don’t know what I would do without it!
Wow! This is splendid ash! Thanks a ton.
There are so many great plug-ins for this browser. As usual, it is hard to keep up with all of the innovation that Google offers. Thank you for the great article
The “Chrome SEO” is simply the best.I have been using it for my websites.
Google Chrome will be interested to work
Great ideas! I am a new blogger and am switching from firefox to google chrome because of these tools. Now, I just need to learn how to use them all.
This is an awesome list. I am a beginner and it had helped me out a lot to understand what i was looking at. Will certainly share it. Thanks!
Mozilla is better then chrome.
I disagree. However, Mozilla has some really great things going on.
Im a Chrome fan too !!! But Everyone uses what they like, right? That is why we have so many diversity in the world… Btw Ash, great list of extensions .
view may differ user to user. I mean, how they use firebox/chrome in their day-to-day work.
Firefox has the biggest variety of useful Firefox Plugins whereas Google Chrome User Interface is very simple and not polluted with unnecessary features that you don´t use regularly.
Since Firefox is together with Internet Explorer the most popular browser, all the web-designers test their sites in Firefox – and you can be pretty much sure that every website works fine while browsing through the web. It is more beneficial and convenient.
Great tools collection, thank you very much for showing them all in one page, real pleasure
Great list of extensions. I personally like #1 and #5. One aspect I do not like about Chrome extensions; is the inability for the extension popup to remain open. If you need to quickly view another tab, leave the browser for a short time (i.e. “click away”), the popup is gone.
I agree with you on the “click away” point. I also don’t like being able to see all my extensions and control where they show up. Maybe in a list.
it is good to see another hard-core chrome fan. Your list is great.
I am really thankful to you Ash!! because you did really amazing job. Nowadays people rush on chrome and there was no sufficient extensions when Google launch chrome but it’s really extra-ordinarily developed by Google. And I also a big fan of chrome. By the way thanks for these Extensions. Have a nice time.
Again, leave it to Google to think of everything. I switched over the Chrome shortly after it was released and have never been happier. It is the easiest to use, super fast and rarely crashes. I agree with the other comments regarding the popups disappearing, but its one of the only negatives. Another minor complaint I have is sometimes chrome does not communicate well when websites utilize payment programs.
Overall though, this is a great list and while I use many, you have intrigued me to try some others.
Fantastic list. Already installed a dozen. Thanks!
Quim, I’m glad you’ve found it useful. There are so many good finds.
A brilliant list, thank you so much. Have just started using Zemanta and think its a wonderful tool, look forward to downloading some others here you suggest.
I want to see the machine that runs 70 extentions on Chrome and still working
Its a great list but you have to pick some from them to install. My machine cant run much of them. I’ll pick the best for SEO
ASH, this was a great list of tools. Very infromative. I go back and fouth between FIrefox and Chrome . Both have most of the tools listed, or a version of one. I was wondering what seems to be more popular of the two in the seo / internet marketingworld. We all know Explorer sucks….lol. I interested in what peoples opions and resoning will be.