First, I think that this idea is brilliant. It’s about time that Microsoft released a tool to help admins improve Web Site relevance. Unfortunately, this SEO Toolkit is for IIS 7 only. Unfortunately again, the SEO Toolkit is an IIS 7 add in – which means that it is only useful for folks that actually have IIS Administrator Rights (whereas SEO reaches far beyond admins). I think that much of the functionality could have been relased as a stand-alone desktop app that could spider against ANY website that you are using and offer many of the same suggestions.
However, there are definitely some great things you can do BECAUSE it is an IIS 7 add in. One of the most immediate is supporting and managing files directly on the server (such as SiteMap.xml and robots.txt).
The toolkit is in Beta – but I’m eager to try it out. Has anyone else used this yet?
You can get the full details and the download from IIS.NET at http://www.iis.net/extensions/SEOToolkit. Here is a snippet directly from the site.
The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps
