This is very interesting I always wondered why did the creators of the most powerful search engine, name their invention Google?  Although the name brings the engine a distinct and unique personality, I couldn’t get rid of the question, Why the name GOOGLE? 

Apparently, the birth of Google was in fact a misspelling of the word Googol which represents 10100 -Now, I admit that I have no clue what that code stands for, nevertheless I have great respect for it. Google, born officially on September 15th 2007 has not only invaded the every day international language of human kind. It has also invaded, the hard to break in, dictionaries.

In 2006, it entered the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, and was registered as a verb. 

To Google means:  “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.” 

Way To Go GOOGLE!

This is a summary of some of the useful SEO extensions developed by Firebox Community. There are thousands of extensions and widgets that are meant to make your life as a SEO professional or a copywriter a lot easier. In my quest I have set a goal to review all of them starting from page one, so as you might’ve guessed by the title of this article, this is part one, with many sequels to come.

An Introduction to Anyone Who is not Familiar with Firefox

“Mozilla is not a traditional software company. We are a global community and public benefit organization dedicated to improving the Internet experience for people everywhere” mozilla.com

Firefox is the most popular product developed by Mozilla, which is maintained by the community, with countless numbers of add-ons and extensions. “According to Market Share by Net Applications, 14.88% of the world’s Web browsers used Firefox in September 2007, with 14.42% using version 1.5 or higher” Wikipedia

The advantages are quite clear.

• Improved Security Over IE
• Immense amount of customization, with extensions designed for SEO, web designers and copywriters.
• Speed. Though Internet Explorer has improved in version 7 I still have to shift towards Firefox.

There are numerous categories of useful extensions for Firefox. In this article I’ve managed to get to page 241, of the Web Development section. All the tools featured below have been installed and personally tested by me.

First of all download and install the Firefox itself.

Here you can find all SEO Firefox extensions as well as other helpful tools and color themes. To install them – simply click install button and restart the browser. However if you do run into any problems you can check Firefox FAQ section.

SEO Firefox Extensions.

1. Web Developer.

It adds a toolbar in your interface with options such as ‘CSS’ ‘Forms’ Images’ ’Tools’ ’Resize’ and more. Personally I did not find the tool very useful since I do not engage in web design or development, however if there are coders or designer reading this – you might find this tool interesting, since it does let you work with CSS, forms and tables, as well the ability to highlight any given elements in a very visual way.

2. Is Google Analytics Installed?
This Firefox SEO extension lets you find out if Google Analytics is intalled on any given site. Whenever it is, this wigged will let you know by lighting up on the bottom left hand corner.

3. Hyperwords 2.8 – this is a must who is engaged in any type of copywriting! You can view short youtube demo over here.
A very useful, flexible tool, with over 200 commands. Some of them are:

• Translation from and to more then 10 languages right in your open webpage. Just highlight the text, choose translate and it will do so right away in the copy you are reading.
• Reference – highlight any word or phrase and check it in Wiki and Google Definition, Dictionary.com
• Highlight any Address then simply pick the maps of your preference to find out the detailed geopraphical location using with Google or Yahoo Maps.
• Other functions include weather, search, blog, email, info – all with the convenience of simply highlighting your words.

Note: By default after installation Hyperwords bar will automatically come up every time you highlight anything, which can get annoying at time, so to disable that go to your plug-ins>Hyperwords>Behaviors and pick the one of your preference.

4. Firefox Ruler.
This tiny Firefox SEO extension puts a ruler button on the left hand bottom side of the browser allowing you to activate it anytime and precisely measure height and width of any web elements in pixels.

5. Advanced Dork.

Gives quick access to Google’s Advanced Operators directly from the context menu.
Search intitle: inurl: intext: site: ext: and a lot more useful SEO extension options.

6. Google advanced features.
This Firefox SEO extension will put up 3 windows in your toolbar menu and give you a shortcut to all of the advanced Google features, the downside however is the fact that you have to enter the actual URL into the field, while other extensions allow you perform same functions by simply highlighting any content of your liking.

7. Fireshot!
A wonderful mini application that allows you to snap a screenshot of any webpage and then edit it. Features include cropping, marking, and commenting – something very useful if you write reviews and engage in copywriting.

8. Show IP.
Will show your IP address in the status bar in red. Some might not find it helpful, but I always wanted to know what my IP is =)

9. Firefox Accessibility Checker.
Check any elements of any page and find out how accessible is it.

10. All in one side bar.
This Firefox extension is not related to SEO field in any way, however I still find it very useful. If you are an Opera user this extension will bring you as close to Opera sidebar option as possible.

11. Proxy Manager for Firefox.
Play around with Firefox proxy settings.

The tools listed were tested and considered by me to bring benefits and make your life easier at some point. I hope it helps you to increase your performance and save some time on repetitions tasks. Part 2 will cover the rest of the Web Development Section and get to News and Feeds Firefox SEO extensions section, so by all means come by!