Let me start by saying this:

I have nothing against SerpBook.

I actually think it’s an extremely useful and powerful marketing tool…

…if your only concern is keyword rank tracking.

That’s it’s bread and butter. And it tracks keywords with the best of them.

But ask it to…

• manage your site’s backlinks,

• show you your top competitors’ backlinks, or

• track your site’s key ranking metrics (like MozRank, page load speed, etc.)

…and it simply falls short.

But there is a tool out there that not only gives you top-notch keyword rank tracking but also all of the above.

It’s called Monitor Backlinks (and, call me biased, but I think it’s pretty great).

So if you’re wondering whether there’s a SerpBook alternative that offers a bit more SEO bang for your buck, you’re gonna want to read this.

A Powerful SerpBook Alternative That Does More for Your SEO

Monitor Backlinks: A SerpBook Alternative for Keyword Rank Tracking

(Quick Disclaimer: It’s important to note that the stated features, pricing, etc. in this post are accurate as of the date of this posting, and that the author, yours truly, is providing as accurate information for each service as possible based on his own personal observations. I am also not a regular user of SerpBook, but signed up for their free 7-day trial.)

It goes without saying that keyword tracking is an important point of comparison when comparing two keyword tracking-focused tools.

As such, this section will focus on the core keyword tracking functions provided by both Monitor Backlinks and SerpBook and compare them accordingly.

Functions like:

• Number of keywords you can track,
• Keyword tracking metrics and capabilities, and
• Competitor keyword analysis.

Let’s get started.

Number of Keywords You Can Track

Both Monitor Backlinks and SerpBook have tiered membership plans that offer different levels of benefits, including number of keywords that can be tracked.

SerpBook currently highlights three main membership packages on their site…

 

 

…with the following “number of keywords tracked” options (from lowest priced to highest priced):

• 500 keywords
• 1,000 keywords
• 2,000 keywords

Monitor Backlinks currently offers six membership packages based on the number of domains you want to manage (plus the option to create a customized plan)…

 

 

…with the following “number of keywords tracked” options:

• 50 keywords
• 200 keywords
• 400 keywords
• 500 keywords
• 700 keywords
• 1,000 keywords

Based on the above info, you can see that while Monitor Backlinks has a greater variety of plans, SerpBook offers more keywords tracked in each plan.

As a point of comparison:

SerpBook’s Personal Daily membership ($42/month) offers 500 keywords while Monitor Backlinks’ Plus membership ($49.90/month) offers 200.

Food for Thought

Now, your natural inclination might be to go for the tool that offers the most keywords, but it’s not always that straightforward when you take a tool’s full list of features and benefits into account.

Ask yourself:

How many keywords do you really need to track right now?

If your site’s been operating for several years and you have hundreds of posts ranking in search engines, then SerpBook will naturally be more attractive.

But what if your site’s relatively new?

Common practice is to set one keyword as your target keyword for a given post. With that logic, your site will need to reach 200 posts before you need to concern yourself with changing Monitor Backlinks plans.

Let’s say you publish a new post every week (typical for newer sites).

That’s 52 quality posts per year. Which gives you a whole four years of keyword tracking with Monitor Backlinks before you even need to think about upgrading.

Add to that the fact that you get access to other invaluable SEO-based features with Monitor Backlinks, and the decision instantly becomes more complex.

But before I get too ahead of myself, let’s finish talking about how SerpBook and Monitor Backlinks compare with the rest of their keyword rank tracking features.

Search Engines Tracked

Monitor Backlinks focuses on tracking keyword rankings for Google only.

SerpBook tracks keywords for the three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Ranking Updates

Monitor Backlinks updates ranking information every seven days, giving you a snapshot of where each of your keywords currently rank on Google.

SerpBook provides daily on-demand updates for each of the three search engines. It also offers a bi-hourly update option for a higher monthly premium.

Historical Ranking Statistics

Monitor Backlinks gives you a historical breakdown of how your keywords have performed on a weekly, monthly, tri-monthly and lifetime period.

And it visually represents that historical data in filterable and easy-to-understand charts and graphs:

 

 

SerpBook also provides historical ranking statistics using easy-to-read graphs:

 

 

They also generate ranking history graphs for individual keywords.

Monitor Backlinks has a similar feature within its keyword list that shows you an individual keyword’s ranking history for the past five updates:

 

Report Generation

Monitor Backlinks lets you download your keyword ranking data into a .csv file that you can open and review in any spreadsheet application.

 

 

SerpBook also provides report generation in the form of .csv and .pdf file formats:

 

 

Additionally, SerpBook offers what is called a ViewKey Link that lets you show live, unchangeable data from your keyword categories to other people.

Both Monitor Backlinks and SerpBook allow you to customize the keywords generated in any given report.

Number of Users Allowed

Monitor Backlinks gives you the option to add up to five users (based on the membership package you choose at signup).

SerpBook allows you to add an unlimited number of users to your account, regardless of the membership plan you choose.

Competitor Keyword Analysis

This powerful feature is unique to Monitor Backlinks.

Monitor Backlinks lets you add up to four competitors per domain (based on membership plan) to your account. From there, it will start tracking that domain’s backlinks on a weekly basis.

Not only that, but it’ll also show you where your competitors are ranking for your target keywords that you’ve added to your account:

 

 

I can’t express enough how valuable this is for getting an accurate assessment of the competitiveness of your site’s SEO in relation to your top competitors.

Keyword Ranking Metrics

The ranking metrics displayed in the keywords list for both tools are similar with some minor differences.

Here’s what you get with Monitor Backlinks:

 

 

• Ranking history that covers the past five weeks (displayed in an easy-to-read line graph).

• Current ranking and the change from the previous update (“+” for an increase in ranking and “-” for a decrease in ranking).

• Competitors’ ranking for keyword (if they rank for it).

• Best historical ranking and how it compares to the current ranking.

• Global monthly search volume (how often people search the keyword on Google).

• Difficulty level (in percentage). Predicts how difficult it will be to rank for the keyword.

And here’s what you get with SerpBook:

 

 

• Current rankings for Google, Yahoo and Bing.

• Featured snippet icon. Tells you if the keyword includes a featured snippet (and the URL currently ranking for it).

• Keyword ranking for YouTube and mobile search (if applicable).

• Ranking history. Covers the past day, seven days and 30 days.

• Features included on the first page for that keyword (like featured snippet, people also ask, and related searches).

• Monthly search volume (how often people search for the keyword per month).

Extra SerpBook Features Not Included in Monitor Backlinks

It’s worth noting here that SerpBook offers its users a few keyword tools and features that aren’t available on Monitor Backlinks but may be important for your site.

They are (in no particular order):

• Mobile rank tracking. SerpBook will track your keyword rankings not only on desktop but also on mobile search.

• YouTube rank tracking. SerpBook also tracks keywords for YouTube videos (if you publish videos for or on your site).

• White label report generation. SerpBook provides users with white label report capabilities complete with company logo integration.

• Keyword Explore. A very useful tool that automatically finds keywords for a given domain.

• Categories. Allows you to set up specified categories for keyword tracking. For example, one category for tracking desktop rankings and one for mobile rankings.

Comparing SerpBook to Monitor Backlinks for Keyword Rank Tracking

If you look at the sheer number of features and keywords you’re able to track, it’s clear that SerpBook is in the lead.

But my question to you would be this:

Are all of the extra bells and whistles really necessary to your site’s success?

I mean, sure… you can track keywords on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

But when more than 90% of the world’s searches are done on Google, do Bing and Yahoo really even matter?

Next, SerpBook gives you daily updates compared to Monitor Backlinks’ weekly updates.

But ask yourself how often you’ll actually be checking your keyword rankings. Are you really gonna log on and check every day?

Not likely. That time could be much better spent on more important SEO-based tasks (like content optimization, influencer outreach, etc.).

And here’s the kicker:

Do you really only need keyword tracking? Or would it be in your best interests to use a similarly priced tool that offers a more complete SEO package?

If you’re not sure what I mean, I’m going to explain it right now.

Monitor Backlinks: A SerpBook Alternative for Backlink Management

If SerpBook is the leader in keyword tracking, then the pendulum swings far in the other direction when talking about backlink management.

To put it bluntly, SerpBook does not offer any backlink monitoring services.

(Yet their pricing is still very similar to Monitor Backlinks. But more on that in just a bit.)

That’s no fault of SerpBook. It’s just not their thing. They choose to focus solely on keywords, and good on them for doing that.

But Monitor Backlinks’ main claim to fame is its uncanny prowess at monitoring a site’s ever-growing roster of backlinks.

(Which has always been a top ranking factor for Google.)

Look at it this way:

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many keywords you can track if none of them are ranking at the top of Google.

Backlinks, on the other hand, are key. So it’s of the utmost importance that you have the ability to easily and confidently track what’s happening with each of your page’s backlinks.

Monitor Backlinks does that for you.

Here’s a brief overview of the backlink features you’ll get in addition to quality keyword tracking when you use Monitor Backlinks:

Backlink Management and Monitoring in One Central and Convenient Location

The Your Links module lists out all of your site’s backlinks (based on Analytics Referrals and Ahrefs API—two of the most trusted backlink data sources) and gives you valuable information about each link:

 

 

Information like:

• Anchor text
• Domain Authority and Page Authority
• MozRank
• Spam Score
• Index information
• TLD and IP location
• Number of external links

All of these data points are key in knowing and understanding the quality of the links that make up your site’s link portfolio.

Which brings me to the next feature…

Site-specific Data for Each Added Domain

Monitor Backlinks will not only track the statistics of each of your page’s backlinks, but will also track specific key statistics of your domain:

 

 

Information like:

• Alexa Rank
• MozRank
• Domain Authority
• Google Index
• Page Load Speed
• Spam Score
• Trust Flow
• Citation Flow

Each of these statistics helps paint a picture of how competitive your site is while giving you a snapshot of what might be preventing you from ranking higher on Google (for example, a slow page load speed).

Reverse-engineering of Your Competitors’ Top Backlinks

As I touched on earlier, Monitor Backlinks lets you add your closest competitors to your account and monitor new backlinks that point back to them:

 

 

This is a priceless feature giving you access to:

• All new links pointing to your competitors’ sites

• Key data about each link

• Link profile performance comparison (to compare your site’s link profile to your competitors’ link profiles)

• Keyword ranking comparison (to know where your competitors are ranking for your top keywords)

You can add up to four competitor domains per account (based on the Plus membership plan).

Notification of Important Link Status Changes

Know exactly what’s happening with your site’s key backlinks.

The Link Status module shows you any changes that take place with all of your site’s backlinks:

 

 

This tells you when links go from a followed status to a nofollowed status, or when a high-quality link suddenly turns into a 404 internal server error.

It even shows you when the site owner or webmaster of a referring site removes the link from their site (which can be useful when checking to see if a link has been removed or disavowed).

Speaking of disavowing…

Efficient Link Disavowing

Monitor Backlinks lets you easily get rid of bad backlinks that are hurting your rankings and preventing you from reaching the top of Google.

(If you’re not caught up on link disavowing, you can read all about it here.)

Monitor Backlinks can self-generate a disavow file for you (all you have to do is tell it which links you want to disavow):

 

 

And then get instant access to Google’s Disavow Tool for disavow file submission.

Monitor Backlinks Pricing vs. SerpBook Pricing

(Note: Both Monitor Backlinks and SerpBook offer discounts for annual subscriptions. For simplicity’s sake, this section focuses solely on monthly subscription rates and comparably priced packages.)

When compared side-by-side, Monitor Backlinks’ prices are very competitive to SerpBook’s.

For instance, let’s take Monitor Backlinks’ Plus membership and compare it to SerpBook’s Personal Daily membership.

SerpBook’s plan is slightly cheaper at $42/month compared to Monitor Backlinks’ $49.90/month.

But look at what you get with each:

SerpBook gives you access to its entire suite of keyword tracking features.

Monitor Backlinks gives you access to its entire suite of keyword tracking features plus its entire suite of backlink monitoring and management features.

SerpBook gives you 500 keywords to track compared to Monitor Backlinks’ 200 keywords (still a significant amount).

SerpBook gives you daily updates. Monitor Backlinks gives you weekly updates.

Monitor Backlinks also gives you:

• Unlimited backlink tracking of up to 2,500 referring domains,

• The ability to add up to two domains for tracking backlinks and keywords,

• Ongoing monitoring of four of your top competitors’ backlinks and keywords (per added domain), and

• 20 monthly on-demand credits (which can be used to instantly check the top 300 backlinks of any URL you desire with the included Free Backlink Checker).

SerpBook gives you none of the above.

And here’s something else to consider:

Let’s say you’re really into the features and number of keywords that SerpBook offers, so you choose to go with them. But you still want a way to conveniently manage your backlinks.

That most likely means that in addition to signing up for a SerpBook membership (at $42/month), you’ll need to also sign up for a backlink management service.

You might choose to go with a tool like Linkody.

Linkody’s base package will set you back almost $15/month and includes 500 backlinks (compared to Monitor Backlinks’ 2,500) with similar backlink management features.

Add that to SerpBook’s monthly price and now you’re paying approximately $57/month for virtually the same functionality that Monitor Backlinks gives you at $49.90/month (saves you over $100 annually).

The numbers speak for themselves.

Summing It All Up

I’ll put it like this:

If you already have a backlink management provider that you’re thrilled with and your only concern is keyword rank tracking, then you honestly can’t go wrong with SerpBook.

It’s a powerful piece of keyword tracking software that delivers all of the important keyword tracking features to its users.

But if you either don’t currently have access to backlink management software or are looking for a more complete SEO package, then I can say with full confidence that Monitor Backlinks is right up your alley.

Not only does it boast first-in-class backlink tracking but also top-shelf keyword and competitor tracking, all in one convenient and easy-to-use package.

Both Monitor Backlinks and SerpBook offer free trials. Sign up for Monitor Backlinks’ free trial here and sign up for SerpBook’s here.

So feel free to take each for a test drive and see how they work.

At the end of the day, regardless of which option you choose, just make sure you find a solution that not only tracks your site’s keywords but also provides you solid SEO-focused tools that will help propel your site and its pages to the top of Google.