Tuesday, 1 June 2021

Lord of the Rings on Amazon: release date, cast, plot and more

The Lord of the Rings is making the jump from theaters to the small screen. That's right, a live-action TV series based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical world is coming to Amazon Prime Video in collaboration with the Tolkien estate.

We've already been treated to two film trilogies - one is better than the other, admittedly - but this is the first time that a live-action TV show based on Tolkien's literary universe has been attempted. While its launch is still someway off, there's plenty of information available online about its cast, production, potential plot, setting and more to keep you occupied.

The latest information drop, from a Twitter fan account, claims that production on Lord of the Rings season 1 will end sooner than expected. Whether this is the case remains to be seen, but it's interesting to hear nonetheless. You'll have to read on to find out more about this, though.

That's not all we've covered. Below, you'll find different sections relating to the most important news and rumors out there, including a possible release date, other casting news and more.

Cut to the chase

  • What is it? Amazon's TV adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth novel series
  • Where can I watch it? Amazon Prime Video
  • When will it be released? Probably 2021
  • What did Amazon pay for Lord of the Rings? $250 million for the rights alone – and that's before you enter production
  • Are the Lord of the Rings movies on Amazon Prime? Yes

Lord of the Rings on Amazon release date: 2022?

The Lord of the Rings

(Image credit: New Line Cinema / WingNut Films)

At the moment, there isn't one. Filming is already underway, however, and has been since February 2020 (per Stuff.co.nz). Of course, production on the series hasn't been without its issues. Stuntwoman Elissa Cadwell was injured just days into filming the first tow episodes, while the Covid-19 pandemic caused production to shut down in New Zealand in March 2020 (h/t New Zealand Herald).

In July 2020, New Zealand government minister Phil Twyford granted exemptions to seven film and TV productions. This allowed cast and crew members to enter the country - during the pandemic - while its borders remained closed to non-New Zealanders. The Lord of the Rings was one such project, and pre-production recommenced in July 2020 (h/t Stuff.co.nz). Filming resumed in late September, according to Deadline, with principal photography starting up again in January following a two-break Christmas break (h/t New Zealand Herald).

Wayne Che Yip is currently leading filming on the TV show after multiple outlets, including Variety, revealed that the Hunters director had been brought on board. Yip will direct four of the series' eight episodes, with the British-Chinese helmer following J.A. Bayona in the directorial hot seat. Bayona directed the series' first two instalments, including the pilot episode, and production on these wrapped on December 23 (h/t ComicBook.com).

Another recent directorial addition is Charlotte Brändström. The Swedish-French director, whose credits include Netflix’s The Witcher and Jupiter’s Legacy, as well as Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, has joined up with production in New Zealand to direct two of season 1’s episodes.

Speaking after the announcement, Brändström said: “I’m very excited to be guided through Middle-earth by J.D.’s and Patrick’s vision and immerse myself in the iconic world of J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s a great privilege to be in New Zealand to work with Amazon Studios’ outstanding ensemble of creative talents. There are countless things still to see in Middle-earth, and great works to do.” 

Check out Brändström's tweet on the announcement below:

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With principal photography still ongoing in New Zealand, then, we shouldn't expect Amazon's Lord of the Rings series to arrive anytime soon. If filming wraps within the next few months, it's possible that the TV show could land in Q4 2021. 

It would be well-timed, on Amazon's part, if its Lord of the Rings series arrived for the winter TV schedule. It'll be 20 years since The Fellowship of the Ring movie arrived in theaters on December 10, so lining up the Lord of the Rings' TV premiere for that date would be a lovely touch.

All of this depends on how long the filmmaking process will take, though, and whether reshoots will be necessary. Just recently, Australian actor Tom Budge left the TV show after Amazon Studios decided to go in a different direction with his character. If there are other adjustments needed during filming, we could see the series further delayed, which would push its release date back.

You can check out Budge's Instagram post on the news below:

A post shared by Tom Budge (@tombudgeofecal)

A photo posted by on

Morfydd Clark, who will portray a young Galadriel in Amazon's Lord of the Rings, also spoke to Esquire about her involvement in Amazon's adaptation recently. Clark explained that she would be filming in New Zealand for "a few months" before being able to return home. Clark also seemingly admitted that she was locked in for five seasons of Amazon's production, which tallies with reports that Amazon want this to be a long-running TV series.

Finally, that 2022 release could be on track if a new leak is to be believed. According to the Fellowship of Fans Twitter account, principal photography on season 1 is due to end on July 30.

This is a week earlier than the series' initial August 6 wrap date, but only takes the main run of filming into account. Reshoots may be necessary if the editing of certain episodes don't flow well but, as of right now, it seems that Amazon's Lord of the Rings is in the final stretch of filming.

Check out the tweet below and make your own minds up:

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Lord of the Rings on Amazon cast: who is playing who?

amazon's lord of the rings

(Image credit: Warner Bros)

A series on this scale needs a huge cast, and Amazon's Lord of the Rings ensemble is absolutely stacked. 

There are currently 35 actors currently listed as appearing in the TV show, according to the official casting page (Budge is still there despite having departed the project). You can check out who will be appearing in Amazon's TV adaptation on that page, and then read on to find out which role each actor is believed to be inhabiting.

According to Variety, Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) has been cast as a younger version of Galadriel. Lord of the Rings fans will know that the powerful elf was played by Cate Blanchett in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. As this series is set during the Second Age, though, Galadriel will be younger in Amazon's TV show.

Another role that we're fairly certain of is Simon Merrells. According to the actor's biography page on the Warring and McKenna management agency website, Merrells (Good Omens) will be playing an original character called Trevyn.

However, there have been rumors surrounding the identities of other actors' roles. In July 2019, The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Markella Kavenagh (The Cry) had signed on to play a character called Tyra, while a December 2020 Deadline report suggested that Lloyd Owen (Monarch of the Glen) would portray someone known as Loda. Robert Aramayo, who played a young Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, is believed to have replaced Will Poulter as Beldor, one of the TV show's main heroes (h/t Deadline).

Joseph Mawle, who played Benjen Stark in Game of Thrones, is also thought to have been cast as the series antagonist Oren (h/t Deadline). However, it's unclear if this character has ties to Sauron - more on him later - or if he'll be a supporting villain. Other series regulars, according to an official Amazon's Lord of the Rings Twitter thread, include General Hospital's Nazanin Boniadi, and Welsh theater actor Owain Arthur.

Additionally, Amazon Studios announced 20 cast members who would play supporting roles in the Lord of the Rings TV show last December (h/t Deadline). British comedian-actor Sir Lenny Henry, Years and Years' Maxim Baldry, Divinity's Maxine Cunliffe, A Discovery of Witches' Trystan Gravelle, and Power's Cynthia Addai-Robinson.

One thing that's definitely certain is that we won't see the likes of Frodo, Sam or Aragorn in this adaptation. For reasons you'll read further down this page, these characters were born in Middle-Earth's Third Age, which places the show outside of their timelines. If you're expecting anything other than a cameo from any of the film trilogy's hobbits or men, you'll be sorely disappointed.

There are key Second Age players, including elven High King Gil-galad, elven smith Celebrimbor, dwarf King Durin III, and Numenorian King Elendil, who haven't had their castings revealed yet either. It's likely that these individuals will be part of the announced cast but, once we have confirmation, we'll update this section.

Lord of the Rings on Amazon plot: what is the story about?

On this front, we have more concrete news. Taking to Twitter in January, TheOneRing.net uploaded the synopsis that Amazon Studios released just weeks into the New Year. You can see the full synopsis in the tweet below:

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Obviously, the synopsis doesn't dive into any character reveals or heavy plot points, but there's enough here to go on for now.

Amazon's Lord of the Rings will be set during Middle-Earth's Second Age, which lasted for nearly 3,500 years and ended with Sauron's eventual defeat at the hands of the alliance between men and elves. This is the battle that opened Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, so it's possible that we may see this adapted again at some point in the Amazon series.

Judging by Amazon's synopsis, however, that will be some way off if it does appear. There's lots of Middle-Earth history that Amazon's Lord of the Rings could cover, and we know that we'll be seeing live-action debuts for new areas of Tolkien's world in the TV show.

It would be amazing for audiences to visit the likes of Numenor, Lindon and Eregion, and seeing Barad-dur being built - as well as the proper forging of the One Ring - would be awesome call backs to the source material and Peter Jackson's Lords of the Rings trilogy. 

While we wait for more news on the story front, we have also seen a map of what Middle-Earth looked like during the Second Age. You can check out the image, which was uploaded to the official Amazon Lord of the Rings Twitter account, below:

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Amazon is reportedly committed to producing five seasons of its Lord of the Rings series, according to a 2018 IGN report. Per a GameSpot article in November 2019, only two of those season have currently been greenlit. 

Future instalments will seemingly depend on the Tolkien estate, too, with an Engadget article from 2019 quoting Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey as saying that the author's estate has the right to veto anything that strays too far from Middle-Earth's lore.

With Amazon having to stick to much of the Second Age's lore, then, we should see how Sauron returns and almost ends up ruling over Middle-Earth. The Lord of the Rings' big bad has a huge role in how the Second Age plays out, so we can expect to see his rise to power again and the eons-spanning fallout after he tries to enslave men, dwarves, and elves with the Rings of Power.

Another element of Amazon's adaptation is that it'll be more adult than some fans have envisaged. According to TheOneRing.net, Amazon hired a well-known New Zealand intimacy coordinator - Jennifer Ward-Lealand - back in October 2020. 

It's unclear what level of intimacy Ward-Lealand has been hired for, but some Tolkien fans have already voiced their displeasure over Ward-Lealand's hiring. Why? Well, intimacy - as an industry term - usually refers to nudity or sex scenes. Think along the lines of HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones and you'll get the idea. 

If, and it's a big if as we don't know Amazon's plan for its adaptation, nudity is a part of the company's Lord of the Rings series, you can expect it to receive a high age rating when it finally airs.

Lord of the Rings on Amazon cost: how much will it be to make?

Amazon bought the rights to the Lord of the Rings TV show for $250 million in November 2017 (h/t Deadline). If Amazon completes its five-season run, it'll be expected that the entire production will have cost $1 billion, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This would make Amazon's Lord of the Rings the most expensive series of all-time.

That $1 billion mark is moving closer to reality, if not more, too. As New Zealand-based publication Stuff recently revealed, season 1 of the show will reportedly cost $650m New Zealand dollars to produce. Converting that into US$, Amazon's Lord of the Rings season 1 will cost upwards of $465 million.

However, it turns out that Amazon Studios will get a portion of its production costs knocked off the bill by the New Zealand government. Reuters has reported that Amazon is getting an extra five per cent from the nation's Screen Production Grant due to the jobs and work it has generated for the country's economy. This means that Amazon Studios is eligible to receive a rebate of NZ$162 million (US$116 million) from the New Zealand government - funds that will reduce Amazon's financial outlay for season 1, at the very least.

Amazon Studios is working alongside HarperCollins and New Line Cinema - the latter helped produced both film trilogies - as well as the Tolkien estate. It's unclear, though, if New Line is helping to pay for production costs.

Lord of the Rings on Amazon crew: who is involved?

amazon's lord of the rings

(Image credit: Amazon)

As well as Yip, Bayona and Brändström, key members of the production team include show creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. The two writers have been on board since July 2018 (h/t The Hollywood Reporter) and are also executively producing the series.

Other executive producers include Bayone, Lindsay Weber, Callum Greene, Jason Cahill, and Gennifer Hutchinson. Kate Hawley is leading costume design on the series, while concept artist John Howe - one the film's chief conceptual designers - is also part of the crew.

One person who hasn't returned for Amazon's adaptation is Peter Jackson. The director of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies had been tapped by Amazon, but ultimately declined to get involved. In a 2018 Metro UK article, Jackson revealed that he and his partners were happy to look over scripts for the TV show if necessary, before adding that he "wished them [Amazon] all the best" with their adaptation. 

Around the same time, Jackson also told Fandom that he "would hope to just be able to go into a Tolkien story and enjoy it like an audience member, which I’ve never been able to do". Jackson will get his wish, then, when Lord of the Rings lands exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the future.

Finally, Howard Shore - who scored all six Lord of the Rings movies - has revealed that he hasn't been contacted about writing the music for Amazon's TV show. Back in January in an interview with Observer.com, the composer admitted that he would "consider it" if the streaming giant approached him, but we'll have to wait and see if there's movement on this front.

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Twitter gives in, appoints interim grievance officer in India

Twitter, in a sense, was probably just show-boating. There was no way it was going to get away by being non-compliant to the law of the land. But after being intransigent and brazening it out for a few days, Twitter has finally appointed the grievance redressal officer as required by the new IT rules in India. 

On its website, it is clear that the company has appointed Dharmendra Chatur as an interim grievance redressal officer. He is reportedly a partner designate in the law firm representing Twitter at the Delhi High Court.

Last afternoon, Twitter also formally told the Delhi High Court that it has appointed a grievance redressal officer in line with the Rule 4 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021 on May 28.

Other social media intermediaries like Google, Facebook and WhatsApp had also appointed a grievance redressal officer without much ado.

Was Twitter trying to be clever by half?

Screenshot of Twitter website that shows the name of new grievance redressal officer

Screenshot of Twitter website that shows the name of the newly appointed grievance redressal officer. (Image credit: Twitter)

Last evening, the Delhi High Court did issue a notice to Twitter for its alleged non-compliance with the new information technology rules. It was also made clear to Twitter that it has to comply with the new Information Technology Rules if they have not been stayed. The court has also asked the government to file its rejoinder.

Twitter had earlier sought 3 months time to comply with the new rules. It also tried to act cute by giving its US office as its redressal centre. This was needlessly needling the government and activists, one of whom actually took Twitter to court. And it is in that case that the microblogging platform company had to quietly announce that it had appointed the said officer.

Twitter's reluctance to put in place a redressal official, who will have a role to play only in case of complaint over contentious content, was a bit baffling.

And its strategy of using its run-in with the Delhi police in an altogether separate case in this issue was a clever-by-half strategy. It thought it was taking the moral high ground. What it was essentially doing was cocking a snook at the law. 

And no company can get away with such a public posturing.

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What's new on Netflix Australia for June 2021

As the number of shows and movies available to stream in Australia continues to grow at an impressive rate, it can be tough to keep up with all the new additions to each streaming service each month. 

We've all come to anticipate a new stable of Netflix Originals releases each month, but figuring out which shows they are and when exactly they become available isn't so easy. And what about the large number licensed shows and films that are made available to stream, if only for a limited time?

In an effort to keep you informed of the best shows and movies that are in the process of being added to Netflix, we'll be bringing you an updated list of what you can expect on the service on a monthly basis. 

Not only that, we'll also be singling out the biggest releases, as well as a number of quality TV shows and films which we believe deserve your Netflixing time. 

After a few weak months in terms of Originals, Netflix has come back swinging with a fantastic month of great new TV shows, specials and movies on offer – here's what's new on Netflix in June 2021. Check out Netflix's newest offerings below!

Netflix highlights for June 2021

Tenet (16/06/2021) 

Visionary director Christopher Nolan's latest blockbuster is easily his most mind-bending yet, set in a world of espionage in which agents must master the concept of 'time inversion' in order to stop a renegade oligarch from ending the world. In essence, Tenet is about a new kind of war in which people fight against a future scenario that's moving backwards in time. 

Sweet Tooth (04/06/2021) 

Based on the DC comic of the same name, Sweet Tooth tells the post-apocalyptical story of a young half boy/half deer hybrid who sets out on an adventure with a gruff adult who may or may not become his new protector. Produced by Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (13/06/2021)

Tired of superhero films? You may want to check out Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse before you commit to that stance, as it's one of the most refreshing, energetic and visually inspired animated films to come out in decades. It follows a new hero Miles Morales, a young kid from the neighbourhood who is bitten by a... Okay, you know the story. But this time, Miles must recruit numerous Spider-people from a number of universes in order to stop the villainous Kingpin from upending reality as we know it.

Fatherhood (18/06/2021) 

Comedian-extraordinaire Kevin Hart stars in Fatherhood, a new Netflix Original dramedy about a widowed dad who must raise a daughter on his own despite being completely clueless. Based on a true story, Fatherhood looks set to make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (18/06/2021) 

In the concluding chapter of the well-liked Rurouni Kenshin series of live-action films,  a terrifying enemy attacks Tokyo, setting the stage for a high-stakes battle that will likely expose our Samurai hero's biggest secrets.

Lupin: Part 2 (11/06/2021) 

After the cliffhanger ending to last season, Assane is back with a new focus: find his son find Raoul who has been abducted by Hubert and his henchmen. Only that can he continue his Lupin-inspired grand plan to reveal Hubert's crimes to the world and avenge the death of his father. 

...and the rest for June 2021

ORIGINAL SERIES

Creator’s File: GOLD (03/06/2021)

Summertime: Season 2 (03/06/2021)

Feel Good: Season 2 (04/06/2021)

Fresh, Fried & Crispy (09/06/2021)

Locombianos (10/06/2021)

Lupin: Part 2 (11/06/2021)

Love (ft. Marriage and Divorce): Season 2 (12/06/2021)

Elite Short Stories: Guzmán Caye Rebe (14/06/2021)

Workin’ Moms: Season 5 (15/06/2021)

Elite Short Stories: Nadia Guzmán (15/06/2021)

Elite Short Stories: Omar Ander Alexis (16/06/2021)

Black Summer: Season 2 (17/06/2021)

Hospital Playlist: Season 2 (17/06/2021)

The Gift: Season 3 (17/06/2021)

Elite Short Stories: Carla Samuel  (17/06/2021)

Katla (17/06/2021)

The Rational Life (18/06/2021)

Elite: Season 4  (18/06/2021)

The World's Most Amazing Vacation Rentals (18/06/2021)

Nevertheless (20/06/2021)

Too Hot to Handle: Season 2 (23/06/2021)

The Naked Director: Season 2 (24/06/2021)

The A List: Season 2 (25/06/2021)

Sex/Life (25/06/2021)

Black Lightning: Season 4 (29/06/2021)

Ray (Coming soon)

Jiva! (Coming soon)

So Not Worth It (Coming soon)

NETFLIX FILM

Carnaval (02/06/2021)

Dancing Queens (03/06/2021)

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie: Part 1 / Part 2 (03/06/2021)

Trippin' with the Kandasamys (04/06/2021)

Sweet & Sour (04/06/2021)

Xtreme (04/06/2021)

Awake (09/06/2021)

Tragic Jungle (09/06/2021)

Skater Girl (11/06/2021)

Silver Skates (16/06/2021)

A Family (18/06/2021)

Jagame Thandhiram (18/06/2021)

The House of Flowers: The Movie (23/06/2021)

Good on Paper (23/06/2021)

America: The Motion Picture (30/06/2021)

Prime Time (30/06/2021)

Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens (Coming soon)

ORIGINAL COMEDY SERIES

Alan Saldaña: Locked Up (03/06/2021)

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY 

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet (04/06/2021)

Human: The World Within (04/06/2021)

Kitty Love: An Homage to Cats (05/06/2021)

Unwind Your Mind (15/06/2021)

Penguin Town (16/06/2021)

This Is Pop (22/06/2021)

Murder by the Coast (23/06/2021)

Sisters on Track (24/06/2021)

Wonder Boy (26/06/2021)

Sophie: A Murder in West Cork (30/06/2021)

KIDS & FAMILY

Super Monsters: Once Upon a Rhyme (01/06/2021)

Wish Dragon (11/06/2021)

Rhyme Time Town: Season 2 (15/06/2021)

StarBeam: Season 4 (29/06/2021)

ORIGINAL ANIME

Trese (11/06/2021)

Godzilla Singular Point (24/06/2021)

The Seven Deadly Sins: Dragon's Judgement (28/06/2021)

Record of Ragnarok (Coming soon)

LICENSED HIGHLIGHTS

Puberty Blues: Seasons 1 - 2 (07/06/2021)

Down to Earth with Zac Efron: Season 1 (11/06/2021)

Viva the Underdogs (14/06/2021)

What's coming next month and beyond?

Netflix has has big plans for 2021, with a number of high-profile shows and movies confirmed for release on the service. Keep coming back to this page each month to find out when they'll be available to stream!

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Monday, 31 May 2021

Best SEO tools of 2021: free and paid search engine optimization services

The best SEO tools make it simpler and easier to manage and monitor your search engine rankings, to ensure that your website is both search friendly and optimized for performance.

The best SEO tools

Click the links below to go to the provider's website:

 

1. SEMrush

2. Ahrefs

3. Moz Pro

4. Majestic

5. Spyfu

6. SEO Spider

7. Jetoctopus

Or jump to best free SEO tools.

At its heart, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) developed as an extension to web accessibility by following HTML4 guidelines, in order to better identify the purpose and content of a document. 

This meant ensuring that web pages had unique page titles that properly reflected their content, as well as keyword headings to be better highlight the content of individual pages, and that other tags were treated the same accordingly. 

This was necessary, not least because web developers were often only focused on whether their coding worked, rather than the user experience, let alone following web publishing guidelines.

This slowly changed as it became increasingly known that search engines used these "on-page" signals to provide their "Search Engine Results Pages" (SERPs) - and that there was an advantage to ranking higher on these to tap into free and natural organic traffic.

Even in 2021, this is still the case, a state of affairs reinforced by the forthcoming Core Web Vitals, Google's way to signal that it is sort of resetting the clock.

The internet has evolved a lot since those early days, and major search engines such as Google now process far more "off page" information when determining their search results, not least by using semantic processing, collating user data, and applying neural networks for the machine learning of patterns, trends, and personal preferences.

Even still, the core ideals of SEO remain the same as they always have - that of ensuring pages have the correct tags for targeting keywords, not just for natural search results, but also for PPC (Pay Per Click) and other marketing campaigns, where call-to-action (CTA) and conversion rates are essential indicators of success.

But how does a business know which keywords to target on its sales pages? How does a website filter transactional traffic from general site visitors? And how can that business increase its ability to capture targeted traffic from across the internet? Here we list a number of tools that will help do exactly that.

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(Image credit: semrush)

1. SEMrush

Advanced SEO tools, all accessible from a masterful dashboard

Analyze competitors' metrics
Informative robust dashboard
Uses some complicated terminology

SEMrush SEO toolkit was originally developed in 2008 by SEMrush. In 2018, the project received funding of $40 million for expansion.

The keyword research tool is accessible from SEMrush's super elaborate dashboard. You can view detailed keyword analysis reports as well as a summary of any domains you manage.

More crucially, the SEO toolkit allows you to compare the performance of your pages to see how you rank against the competition. For instance, you can analyze backlinks from other websites to yours. (this process is sometimes called 'link building').

Traffic analytics helps to identify your competitors' principle sources of web traffics, such as the top referring sites. This enables you to drill down to the fine details of how both your and your competitors' sites measure up in terms of average session duration and bounce rates. Additionally, "Traffic Sources Comparison" gives you an overview of digital marketing channels for a bunch of rivals at once. For those new to SEO slang 'bounce rates' are the percentage of visitors who visit a website then leave without accessing any other pages on the same site.

The domain overview does much more than provide a summation of your competitors' SEO strategies. You can also detect specific keywords they've targeted as well as access the relative performance of your domains on both desktop and mobile devices.

SEMrush has received many positive mentions online but has been critiqued for use of SEO jargon such as 'SERP' which may alienate inexperienced users. A 'Pro' subscription costs $119.95 per month which includes access to all SEO tools.

Over time, SEMrush added a few more tools to its offerings: a writer marketplace, a traffic-boosting tool, a tool set for agencies and even a white-glove service for PR agencies.

A 14-day free trial is available for Techradar readers to try out the service.

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(Image credit: Ahrefs)

2. Ahrefs

A full SEO suite with good price points and great web index

Largest and fastest commercial web link index
Documentation, free tutorials, and knowledgeable user support
Advanced filtering tools for power users
No desktop or mobile apps
API integration needs improvement

Since its initial release in 2011, Ahrefs has quickly become one of the most popular SEO tools on the market, and it is used by web developers and content creators around the world to grow their online presence.

Ahrefs boasts the largest backlink index of top SEO tools, with over 295 billion indexed pages and more than 16 trillion backlinks. Throw in an upgraded keywords explorer, tools for monitoring the competition, plus a serious amount of user documentation, and Ahrefs may be the tool you need to rank better and increase traffic. 

Ahrefs comes with all the tools you need to explore and grow your online presence. A central dashboard gives you an overview of your projects’ ranking, traffic, and backlinking. From the landing page, you can easily access each of the five core Ahrefs elements, outlined below.

Ahrefs boasts a number of powerful features that help set it apart, including a proprietary web crawler second only to Google in size and speed. While price points are broadly aligned with those of similar products, best-in-class link analysis, powerful research tools, and knowledgeable user support help make Ahrefs one of the best options for understanding and improving your domain’s online presence.

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(Image credit: Future)

3. Moz Pro

Community supported search marketing tools

Wide range of tools
Huge amount of data
Supportive community

Moz Pro is a platform of SEO tools that aim to help you increase traffic, rankings, and visibility across search engine results. 

Key tools include the ability to audit your own site using the Moz Pro spider, which should highlight potential issues and recommend actionable insights. There's also the ability to track your site rankings over hundreds or even thousands of keywords per website.

There's also a keyword research tool to help determine which keywords and keyword combinations may be the best for targeting, and there's also a backlink analysis tool that mixes a combination of metrics including anchor text in links as well as estimated domain authority.

Pricing for Moz Pro begins at $99 per month for the Standard plan which covers the basic tools. The Medium plan offers a wider range of features for $149 per month and a free trial is available. Note that plans come with a 20% discount if paid for annually. Additional plans are available for agency and enterprise needs, and there are additional paid-for tools for local listings and STAT data analysis.

Even if you don't sign up to Moz Pro, a number of free tools are available. There's also a huge supporting community ready to offer help, advice, and guidance across the breadth of search marketing issues.

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(Image credit: Majestic SEO)

4. Majestic SEO Tools

A royal offering for all backlink tinkerers

Huge amount of data
Multiple features
Excellent analysis

Majestic SEO tools has consistently received praise from SEO veterans since its inception in 2011. This also makes it one of the oldest SEO tools available today.

The tools main focus is on backlinks, which represent links between one website and another. This has a significant influence on SEO performance and as such, Majestic has a huge amount of backlink data.

Users can search both a 'Fresh Index' which is crawled and updated throughout the day, in addition to an 'Historic Index' which has been praised online for its lightning retrieval speed. One of the most popular features is the 'Majestic Million' which displays a ranking of the top 1 million websites.

The 'Lite' version of Majestic costs $50 per month and incorporates useful features such as a bulk backlink checker, a record of referring domains, IP's and subnets as well as Majestic's integrated 'Site Explorer'. This feature which is designed to give you an overview of your online store has received some negative comments due to looking a little dated. Majestic also has no Google Analytics integration.

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(Image credit: SpyFu)

5. SpyFu

Value-priced SEO tools for all business sizes

Easy to use
Comprehensive set of features
Competitively priced
Comes with advanced tools that beginners may not need
Data overkill can be difficult to sort through.

SpyFu  is a search analytics company that scrapes the internet for data that is used to identify the keywords that companies and websites purchase using Google AdWords. SpyFu also matches search results with search terms so that companies have more insight into the types of searches and strings of words for which they appear on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

SpyFu essentially allows you to ‘spy’ on your competitors by helping you pinpoint the keywords your competitors purchase for online advertising and by singling out the words and phrases that generate the most traffic. In this way, you can keep a step ahead of other companies or services working in your industry and attract more traffic to your own sites.

SpyFu has three different plans. The basic plan costs $33 per month and comes with 250 sales leads and domain contacts as well as 5,000 weekly tracked keyword rankings. This plan is best suited to new startups and small companies with a limited online footprint.

Few products come close to providing the depth and functionality you get with SpyFu. It is priced below its main competitors, is easy to use, and can be customized to your needs. It provides all of the PPC, SEO, and keyword research tools anyone from a big company to a small startup would need and is a highly effective and well-designed application.

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(Image credit: Screaming Frog)

6. SEO Spider

SEO Spider is an effective web crawler but the free version is slightly limited

Used by industry leaders
Excellent crawling features
Limited free version

SEO Spider was originally created in 2010 by the euphemistically named "Screaming Frog". This rowdy reptile's clients include major players like Disney, Shazam and Dell.

One of the most attractive feature of SEO Spider is its ability to perform a quick search of URL's, as well as crawl your site to check for broken pages. This saves you the trouble of manually clicking each link to rule out '404 errors'.  

The tool also allows you to check for pages with missing title tags, duplicated meta tags, tags of the wrong length, as well as check the number of links placed on each page 

There is both a free and paid version of SEO Spider. The free version contains most basic features such as crawling redirects but this is limited to 500 URLs. This makes the 'Lite' version of SEO Spider suitable only for smaller domains. The paid version is $180 per year and includes more advanced features as well as free tech support.

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(Image credit: Jetoctopus)

7. Jetoctopus

Flexible on-page SEO analytics platform

Flexible plan options
Multiple on-page tools
Simple and easy to use interface
Good support
Free trial with 100,000 URLs
Not comprehensive
Pricing may not be competitive

Jetoctopus provides a web crawler, log analyzer, and Google Search Console (GSC) visualizations, to help identify problems with a website for SEO purposes, with pricing determined according to the volume of analysis required. You can subscribe to any of these individually as a module, or alternatively you can opt for an All-Inclusive plan that combines all three.

For the Crawler, pricing starts at $30 a month for up to 100,000 URLs crawled a month, though note that JavaScript pages count as two. This is cloud-based, so it won’t slow your PC, and you can opt for a speed of up to 250 pages crawled a second. The price rises if you need to crawl more, with a top level of $900 a month to crawl up to 8 million pages.

Jetoctopus is relatively easy to use and get started with, though it may take a while for a new user to identify all of the different options and information points they want to work most with. The layout is a simple and easy-to-use three column one, with two narrow navigation columns to the left, and data visualizations presented in the rest of the screen.

Jetoctopus is a clean and easy to use SEO tool, which remains focused on covering analytics from a range of different angles. While more expensive SEO platforms such as Ahrefs offer a more comprehensive set of tools, and the cheaper Screamingfrog offers some similar functionality, Jetoctopus offers a little more than either when it comes to on-page SEO analytics. 

Best free SEO tools

Although we've highlighted the best paid-for SEO tools out there, a number of websites offer more limited tools that are free to use. Here we'll look at the best free SEO tools available.

(Image credit: Google Webmaster Tools)

1. Google Search Console

Who better than the search giant Google to improve your SEO?

Ideal for beginners
Easy access to key metrics
Free support

Google Search Console (GSC) is an excellent way for newbie webmasters to get started with SEO. 

Even if you're not headstrong on SEO, whatever the size of your site or blog, Google's laudable Search Console (formerly Webmaster Central) and the myriad user-friendly tools under its bonnet should be your first port of call. 

The suite of tools gives you valuable information about your site at a glance: it can assess your site's performance and observe potential problems to troubleshoot (like negative spammy links), help you ensure your site is Google-friendly and monitor Google's indexing of your site. 

You can even report spam and request reconsideration if your site has incurred a penalty. Plus, if you don't refer to their Webmaster Guidelines now and again, well, you've only yourself to blame if you go wrong. Search Console is constantly updated, and new features are on the way, such as new URL inspection tool or the new sitemaps report.

Help is available via the Webmasters Help Community, a place for webmaster's to connect and share troubleshooting and performance tips. Since the end of 2020, Google migrated its disavow link tool to Search Console and has also updated its Outdated Content tool.

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(Image credit: Google)

2. Google Ads keyword planner

Free keyword selection tool from Google

Free
Comprehensive keyword lists
Approximated figures

Knowing the right keywords to target is all-important when priming your web copy. Google's free keyword tool, part of Google Ads, couldn't be easier to use. Plug your website URL into the box, start reviewing the suggested keywords and off you go. Jill Whalen, CEO of HighRankings.com is a fan and offers advice to those new to keyword optimization: "make sure you use those keywords within the content of your website." 

However, while useful for keyword research purposes it's important to realize the numbers provided are approximations rather than exact figures, and intended to provide a guide to popularity rather than exact real-time search volume.

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(Image credit: Google)

3. Google Optimize

Free
A/B Split testing platform
Not as feature-rich as rivals
Not for beginners

Yet another Google tool on that list (not a surprise isn’t it). Google Optimize is not for the faint hearted and will make even seasoned SEO experts uncomfortable. SEO isn't all about rankings and without the right balance of content that engages with your visitors and drives conversions, you're earnest optimization could be wasted. 

Google’s free service helps take the guesswork out of the game, allowing you to test your site's content: from simple A/B testing of two different pages to comparing a whole combination of elements on any given page. Personalization features are also available to spice things up a bit. Note that in order to run some of the more complicated multivariate testing, you will need adequate traffic and time to make the results actionable, just as you do with Analytics.

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(Image credit: SEOQuake)

4. SEOquake

SEOquake is one of the most popular toolbar extensions. It allows you to view multiple search engine parameters on the fly and save and compare them with the results obtained for other projects. Although the icons and numbers that SEOquake yields might be unintelligible to the uninformed user, skilled optimizers will appreciate the wealth of detail this add-on provides. 

Gauge details about number of visitors and their country, get a site's traffic history trended on a graph, and more. The toolbar includes buttons for a site's Google index update, backlinks, SEMRush ranking, Facebook likes, Bing index, Alexa ranks, web archive age and a link to the Whois page. There’s also a useful cheat sheet and diagnostics page to have a bird’s view of potential issues (or opportunities) affecting a particular page or site.

What is an SEO crawler?

An SEO crawler can help you discover and fix issues that are preventing search engines from accessing and crawling your site. It remains an essential yet elusive tool in the arsenal of any good SEO expert. We caught up with Julia Nesterets, the founder of SEO crawler Jetoctopus to understand what exactly an SEO crawler and why is it so important.

If you are a webmaster or SEO professional, this is probably the most heartbreaking message you may receive. Sometimes Google’s bots may ignore your content and SEO efforts and avoid indexing your page. But the good news is that you can fix this issue! 

Search engines were designed to crawl, understand, and organize online content to deliver the best and most relevant results to users. Anything getting in the way of this process can negatively affect a website’s online visibility. Therefore, making your website crawlable is one the primary goals and can highlight any issues you have with your web hosting service provider. 

By improving your site’s crawlability you can help search engine bots understand what your pages are about and by that leverage your Google ranking. So how can an SEO crawler help? 

1. It offers real-time feedback. An SEO crawler can quickly crawl your website (some crawls as fast as 200 pages per second) to show any issues it gives. The reports analyzes the URL, site architecture, HTTP status code, broken links, details of redirect chains and meta robots, rel-canonical URLs, and other SEO issues. These reports can be easily exported and referred to for further action by the technical SEO and development teams. Thus, using an SEO crawler is the best way to ensure your team is up to date on your website crawling status. 

2. It identifies indexing errors early. Indexing errors like 404 errors, duplicate title tags, duplicate meta descriptions, and duplicate content, often go unnoticed as they aren’t easy to locate. Using an SEO crawler can help you spot such issues during routine SEO audits, allowing you to avoid bigger problems in the future. 

3. It tells you where to start! Deriving insights from all available reports may be intimidating for any SEO professional. Therefore, it’s wise to choose an SEO crawler which is problem-centric and helps you prioritize issues. A good crawler should make it possible for webmasters to concentrate on the main problems by estimating their scale. That way, webmasters can keep fixing critical issues in a timely manner.

How do Google SEO spiders work and many more backlink questions

An SEO crawler can help you discover and fix issues that are preventing search engines from accessing and crawling your site. It remains an essential yet elusive tool in the arsenal of any good SEO expert. We caught up with Julia Nesterets, the founder of SEO crawler Jetoctopus to understand what exactly an SEO crawler, why is it so important and a bevy of questions about backlinks in general.

Google’s SEO spiders are programmed to collect information from webpages and send it to the algorithms responsible for indexing and evaluating content quality. The spiders crawl the URLs systematically. Simultaneously, they refer to the robots.txt file to check whether they are allowed to crawl any specific URL.

Once spiders finish crawling old pages and parsing their content, they check if a website has any new pages and crawl them. In particular, if there are any new backlinks or the webmaster has updated the page in the XML sitemap, Googlebots will add it to their list of URLs to be crawled. 

So is it worth retrospectively adding backlinks? It’s worth adding backlinks to content that was posted a while ago, especially if a page is high-quality and on the same subject. This will also help preserve the equity of that page.

Is there a hierarchy of backlinks? Technically, there is no hierarchy of backlinks, as we can’t structure and scale them the way we want. However, we can increase the quality of backlinks based on several criteria like:

  • Anchor text relevance
  • Relevance and quality of a linking page
  • Linking domain quality
  • IP address
  • Link clicks and a linking website traffic
  • Few links on the linking webpage

The links of highest quality have relevant keywords in the anchor text and come from trustworthy websites. But again, there are no hard and fast rules on how Google evaluates backlinks. Some backlinks can still be of proper quality even if they don’t  fulfill these parameters. 

How often should a site audit links?

Though there’s no right or wrong way of auditing links, there are a few pointers to bear in mind when determining the frequency. 

  • If your website has a long history of inorganic link building, it’s wise to do a monthly disavow. 
  • In most cases, a quarterly audit is recommended. It allows webmasters to keep a website’s link profile clean and track new backlinks pointing. 
  • Links on a website that has been growing ethically and isn’t in a competitive domain can be checked half-yearly as the risk of the negative SEO is low.  

Consider a website with hundreds of old, very low traffic pages with no links (e.g. eCommerce/news). Is it worth either 301 these pages to relevant key hubs or update the page with backlinks to the relevant key hubs without updating the dates?

In such a case, choose the pages with the best content and update them. Set up 301 redirects for the pages you do not want your audience to see and point them to the relevant key hubs. The key term here is ‘relevant.’ The 301 redirects should point to thematically relevant hubs. Otherwise, Google will treat them as soft 404s. 

Are social media backlinks any good in 2021?

Most webmasters may feel that social media backlinks are pointless primarily because they are Nofollow links that do not impact SEO. However, social signals are an important ranking factor for Google. People are constantly clicking on links they see in their newsfeeds. If you offer great content, then this can be a great advantage for you. That’s why, do not ignore social backlinks.

Can adverts impact your SEO negatively?

When you think of SEO, you generally don’t think of ads, and with good reason. Eric Hochberger, Co-Founder and CEO of full service ad management company Mediavine, explains to us the love-hate relationship between these two entities.

By definition, advertising runs counter to the goals of SEO optimization, a process which relies on publisher content and user experience. However, as an ad management company that originated as an SEO marketing firm, we work to find the perfect balance, ensuring the two can coexist. Yes, you can run high-performing ads and still rank well in search engines thanks to the right ad tech. It’s not an either-or scenario, and here’s why:

The first key feature is lazy loading. When a website employs lazy loading, ads only load on a webpage as a user scrolls to them. Meaning, if a user doesn’t scroll to a certain screen view, the ads don’t exist on the page. This function extremely lightens the page load. A lighter page means faster loading which leads to better SEO.

Complying with the Coalition for Better Ads (CBA) standards is critical to SEO because the CBA is what Google uses to power its built-in Chrome Ad Filtering and its Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console (its main SEO tool). There’s a misconception that the number of ads affects SEO, but it’s actually the density. The CBA provides comprehensive insight regarding appropriate ad-to-content ratios for both mobile and desktop.

Lastly, reducing above the fold (ATF) ads, or ads that appear in the first screen view, is huge for both page speed and SEO. If an ad isn’t loading in the first screen view, the site will appear to load faster (how Google measures it), since users don’t notice when an ad loads if it’s below the fold.

Which leads me to this - you’ll often hear that SEO follows user experience. Google uses this line quite a bit, which makes sense. Ultimately, the goal of Google search results is to return the best user experience. If ads are bogging down a website, that doesn’t equal a high-quality user experience, which therefore will not generate good SEO. Do you see the pattern here?

While there is an ability for SEO and advertisements to coexist in a positive way, the existing resources for publishers to promote this are scarce. The solution would be to get a framework that works on the most popular CMS and focuses on Google’s best practices from Core Web Vitals to page experience and employs lazy loading and reducing ads ATF.

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Best portfolio website builders of 2021

The best website builder for portfolios will make it easy to publish and manage your photographs and other artwork online.

Best portfolio website builders

1. Weebly

2. Cargo

3. IM Creator

4. Krop

5. Adobe Portfolio

Read on for our detailed analysis of each website builder for portfolios

Creating a new website is a lot easier than it used to be – rather than learning HTML and CSS, you can just click and drag with your mouse and have something very professional-looking on the internet in minutes, and portfolio website builders are no different.

The increased use of this software online means you've got a selection of the website builders for portfolios to choose from. However, with so many great selection of tools to choose from, it can be difficult to pick out the best portfolio website builders from a crowd of so many. 

To help you narrow down your choice, we've picked five portfolio website builders that offer a good balance of price points and features.

All of these website builders for portfolios offer simple ways of customizing your pages once they're online, so you can regularly change the look of your work, and make sure your talents are always being well promoted on the web.

Here then are what we think are the best portfolio website builders.

Top 3 website builder services

1. Wix - a top-notch website builder that's great value
 Wix is top dog when it comes to free website builders, but it also offers some powerful paid plans. These start from as little as $8.50 per month for the Combo plan (over three years) which removes the adverts from your site, as well as giving you 3GB of storage space, a free domain and free SSL certificate.

2. Gator is a great website builder service
 Gator Site Builder from Hostgator has a superbly cheap Starter package which comes with free hosting and a domain name included, plus a free SSL certificate. You get constantly available customer support, too, and the benefit of website analytics to boot: all with 50% off meaning you pay just $3.84 per month.

3. Zyro - a serious, high-quality site builder
 Hostinger-owned Zyro offers a website builder that is very easy-to-use and ideal for novices, allowing anyone to get their site up swiftly. You’ll pay very little for the privilege too and even the premium "Unleashed" plan costs just $3.90 monthly.

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Weebly (Image credit: Future)

1. Weebly

Created with portfolios in mind

Elegant, user-friendly interface
Advanced site analytics in paid plans
Relatively small choice of themes

Weebly was first set up with the intention of making it easy to set up a portfolio of work online, and those origins stand it in good stead today, even as it has broadened its horizons to become more of a general website builder. If you don't mind a Weebly subdomain, some ads on your site, and a limit of 500MB storage, you can actually use it for free.

While the choice of themes is relatively small, they're all fully customizable, and they all work on any size of screen, automatically reformatting to suit the display dimensions. Weebly has one of the most elegant and user-friendly website editor interfaces we've seen, so you can tweak your portfolio in exactly the way you want.

One of the many areas where Weebly excels is in the way it calmly handles a lot of technical stuff quietly in the background: it gives you enhanced SSL security by default, and (on the paid options) advanced analytics for your website, plus the option to transfer over a domain name.

If you want to get up and running quickly, would like to spend some – but not a lot – of time customizing your site, and need something that's going to be reliable and comprehensive, Weebly fits the bill. The fact that you can get started for free to see if you like it is an added bonus.

Cargo (Image credit: Future)

2. Cargo

Portfolio building with an edge

Get up and running in minutes
Great choice of image effects and fonts
Will be too unconventional for some

There's a lot that appeals to us about the website builder Cargo: the unconventional and varied choice of templates, the intuitive page tweaking interface you can edit them with, and the way that you can build up an entire site without paying a penny (you won't be charged until the site goes live).

It's certainly got more of an edge than other comparable website builders, which might be good or bad depending on what you're looking for. The templates available are all eye-catching and bold, and will work best for people wanting to stand out from the crowd, whether that's with photography or writing.

Every template is responsive and works on a variety of screens, while Cargo also offers some cool animated image effects you can play around with too. On top of that, the site builder is to be commended for its wide choice of fonts as well, plus, even more fonts are being added from time to time.

Besides all of the features on the surface – including an online template editor that hits a nice balance between simplicity and customization – you get 6GB of image cloud storage, unlimited pages, unlimited bandwidth, the option to transfer over a domain name if you need to, and a ton of help and support (including tutorial videos).

IM Creator (Image credit: Future)

3. IM Creator

All the options you need

Strong selection of templates
Doesn't take long to get started
Will be too advanced for some

Built on the latest HTML5 technology and with useful extras like e-commerce and domain name support included, IM Creator is going to be too advanced and in-depth for some, but will suit other portfolio builders perfectly. That's not to say it's difficult to use – there's just more going on.

You don't need to know a shred of code to get started, there are plenty of different themes and looks to choose from, and we like the way the themes are already pre-populated with content. That means you can just edit the sample material that's already there rather than starting from scratch, which can be more daunting.

If you want to go deeper into your website building and customizations, then IM Creator makes this possible. The site editor includes a variety of gallery and slideshow options, plus image effects to drop over your uploaded pictures, and the option to change everything from the fonts used to the page margins.

We'd recommend IM Creator if you're looking to stand out from the pack – it has a wide choice of templates and some detailed editing options too. On the other hand, it does need a bit more of a time and effort investment than other site builders.

Krop (Image credit: Future)

4. Krop

Premium template options

Find a job at the same time
Useful third-party integrations
Lacks more advanced customizations

Krop is a creative jobs site and a portfolio builder rolled into one, so you know that its services are trusted by people in the same industry as you (or the same industry that you're trying to break into). What's more, its template options are some of the most well-designed that we've seen.

The website builder ticks all of the boxes that you should be looking for. Setting a site up is quick and easy, you can register a custom domain if you want to, and making tweaks to the design and layout of your pages is very straightforward too. On top of that, you get neat extras like Dropbox and Instagram syncing, and Google Analytics integration.

If you do know some CSS, then you can take more control over the way your site is designed. If not, you can just use the simple site editor instead – picking colors and fonts is as easy as clicking on a side panel.

Those of you who are looking to get a gig at the same time as building your website can of course switch straight over to the job section of the Krop site to find work – there are some big-name employers on the portal. You can try out the service with a free 14-day trial.

Adobe Portfolio (Image credit: Future)

5. Adobe Portfolio

A superb option for CC subscribers

Simple and straightforward setup
Online interface is very polished
Requires a Creative Cloud subscription

Considering Adobe makes some of the best creative software in the business, you would hope it knows what it's doing in terms of displaying portfolios on the web – and we're glad to report that is indeed the case.

This is slightly different to the other services we've mentioned here, because it's a free add-on to the Creative Cloud suite developed by Adobe. If you don't already pay for the programs then Portfolio is unlikely to tempt you to part with your cash, but if you are a CC subscriber, it's worth looking at this before venturing anywhere else. Worth noting that college graduates can get Adobe Portfolio free for 1 year.

While it doesn't offer as many customization and layout options as some of the other site builders we've mentioned here (although, the popular feature request - video backgrounds, has been added), Adobe Portfolio does make the process of getting your work online simple and fun. Of course there's also the tight integration with Adobe's apps, so you can easily share your work straight from Lightroom to the web. You can also purchase and connect a domain if you wish.

Pages are optimized for any device and certain ones can be password-protected if needed, and there's also the option to bring over a domain name you already own. For a simple portfolio maker that plugs right into the apps you already use (assuming that's the case), it's ideal.

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