Rank Spy [review]
POS:
None reallyNEG:
Very slow, buggy, has been done beforeToday I’m doing a review of the new Rank Spy keyword research software. Rank Spy is a new keyword research tool that Craig asked me to review. He told be that its unlike anything I have ever seen. In fact his exact words where “this is a beast of a saas”: Well after testing this […]
Today I’m doing a review of the new Rank Spy keyword research software.
Rank Spy is a new keyword research tool that Craig asked me to review. He told be that its unlike anything I have ever seen. In fact his exact words where “this is a beast of a saas”:
Well after testing this let me tell you. Boy was he right! This thing is a beast. Unfortunately its a inefficient, super slow, over hyped, painful to use beast. Let me explain.
Initially it took me a while to get this software to install on my computer. It uses the .NET frame work which I did not have on my machine. Well actually I did have it, but I did not have the correct version. This requires the Because of this I had to download and install the .NET framework first. This while relatively painless did take a bit of time.
Once I got the .NET framework installed I was able to install the software and was presented with what you see in the image above. I clicked the ‘Video Help’ button and watched the tutorial video. The video was easy to follow and showed clearly how to use the software and what I needed to do.
The first thing I needed to do was click “Add New Project”. After clicking this I was asked to type in a project name.
After entering the name I was then asked for the keyword I wanted to search for, the Google site I wanted to search (this searches several Google sites) and I was asked to enter my Google Adwords account info.Once I entered all of this info I was able to begin my keyword search.
A search is done in two stages with this software. The first stage is where it calculates keywords and submits data. This only has to be done once for each keyword you search, but it will need to be done for every keyword you want to do research on.
On my first test after waiting for 5 minutes the software told me there where no Adwords results because I entered the wrong password for my Adwords account. Why it took it 5 minutes to check if my username and password was correct I will never know. I can only guess its because efficiency and functionality was not something that was considered when this software was designed.
But anyway I clicked back to edit my Google account info in the software and it crashed.Well things happen, software crashes.
So I restart and go about adding a new project with the intent of correcting my adwords account info. However this time it did not ask me for my Adwords account info. Instead it went right into the screen you see above where it is searching (even though it cant fully search since my account info is wrong). Well I know its not going to return complete results so I click the cancel button that is in the lower right just outside of the screenshot. However the cancel button does not work.
Now I know that it is my fault for entering my Google Adwords account info incorrect but the way this software handles a simple typo when entering this data is supper inefficient. Why doesn’t it check the account info before doing the entire search instead of making the user wait several minutes for the search result to complete and then telling me that the Adwords results will not be included? A more logical thing would be to test the Adwords credentials first, if they are found to be wrong ask the user if they want to proceed anyway or if they want to cancel and correct the settings they entered.
Ok so after all of this I finally got it to complete the first stage of the search where it calculates the keywords and submits the data. This took a total of 9 minutes to complete once I got my Adwords info entered correctly. Once that was completed I was able to select the ‘project’ it created for my search and pull the search results.
This took an additional 14 minutes to complete. What this means is that even setting aside the problems I had at first because my Adwords info was wrong. Even when everything works as it should. It still took 23 minutes to do a single search on a single keyword. That’s insane! 23 minutes to search for one keyword? What if you want to search several keywords or several niches? What if you want to search multiple Google sites? This could take hours! All I can think to myself is that this thing better give me some super awesome data that is going to make it worth waiting 23 minutes for.
But unfortunately that does not seem to be the case.
Instead what I got was results for just a few keywords, 12 from Google auto suggest, 9 from ‘trends’, 10 from YouTube and 8 from Amazon. I spoke to Peter Drew about the results and he claims that these are ‘better’ results than what other products provide. But honestly Im not convinced of that. One thing that is for sure is that in the end this software was more of a pain to use, was much slower than other products, and returned less results than other keyword tools I have used.
So what do I think of Rank Spy over all? Well its not a new concept. There are plenty of keyword search tools out there. There are others that will search the Google suggest database, that will search sites like Amazon or Ebay. What this tool does is nothing new at all. It does however manage to do it much slower and much less efficiently than the others.
UPDATE: I do want to make one thing clear that might have not been in the review. This software is a load sharing system that distributes the work load among everyone using the software (or who has it running in the background). What this means is the more people who use it the faster it will work (in theory). This of course assumes that people use it or have it running in the background. (something Im not convinced of since less than 24 hours into its launch and it already has a refund rate higher than its sales rate)
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
About the Author
Hi Brett, thank you for your honest reviews. It is really appreciated.
Brett,
Thanks for the review, I will pass on this one. I will be curious to see just how many returns there will be, once folks open it and find the difficulties you speak about in your review.
Brett,
Thank you for another timely review. Two red flags for me were that they did not even take the time to remove the “Just another WordPress…” from the tag line of the sales page and that there is no Privacy Policy or TOS at the footer of the sales page.
Thanks again.
Thanks Brett for saving me from a headache.
Thanks for your honesty, Brett. You roll Like I do!
Sometimes it has cost me, but in the end, being truthful in business always pays.
Hi Brett, thanks for the review, already excited for purchasing this product.
You could recommend some keyword tool with which you had a good experience.
Here is one I reviewed a while back:
http://brettrutecky.com/Software-detail/keyword-suggestion-review/
Thanks for your timely review, Brett. I was trying to decide between this and the popular Market Samurai to help me select good keywords with marketable products,etc.
The sales pitch for Rank Spy was quite strong and then one had to dig to find the price.
Even that was unclear as it looked like you could only have it to test for a month at 17 or 37 dollars. For lifetime access the product was about 487dollars I believe.
Thanks for the good advice.
Thanks for the warning…not only will I not buy this, but I will unsubscribe from the mailing list of anyone that tries to peddle this to me (so you are not only helping my wallet but also cleaning out my mailbox)
anyone who recommends this has either –
a) not checked it out
b) doesn’t give a damn about their list
c) both a and b
Brett,
Thanks Brett. I was about to buy this when I thought to myself “I wonder if Brett reviewed this?” Thankfully you did and saved me the trouble.
Glad I could help.
Thanks for reviewing this software, Brett. Your analysis saved me a lot of grief. I always look for your review before purchasing software. I appreciate the time you take to look out for us.
I too thank you AGAIN for your honest review. I was looking at this was thinking in the sample video that it sure took a long time for it to produce results. But mostly what stopped me from really looking at it further was the fact of having to pay a monthly service for it… and it just didn’t seem worth it just from that view point.
Brett my man,
You have a chronic habit of misspelling “were.” You spell it “where.” Your last email blast has the error four times in the first paragraph alone. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things a spellchecker won’t pick up.
Hate to be a spelling nazi, but it looks pretty unprofessional.
That’s for the feedback Sam, spelling and grammar is something that is super hard for me. It always has been. Where as math and logic was always very easy. I guess thats why I became a computer programmer and not a novelist 🙂 I rely on spell check very much, which does not catch things like this. Though I think the spelling has no bearing on my ability to review a software I appreciate you trying to help me improve.
I’m convinced that spelling is genetic. 🙂
LOL I like that 🙂 Its not my fault .. its my bad genes!!!
Thanks so much, Brett! I received quite a few promotional emails about this (and unsubscribed from some of the lists), but I did notice that the promotional emails seemed to slow down after your review came out! 🙂 Good job!
Astonishing. So disappointing that someone as established as Peter Drew would sell rubbish.
Thank you, Brett, were were you when I bought, Not a Ninja No-Pro, or SocialStinkyDude, or MassUpChuckSamurai. LOL
Oh, were are you knew? ha! Just joking.
In all seriousness, I have a real question for you.
How do I fine refund rates on IM products.
Thanks
Check out this article Greg:
http://brettrutecky.com/how-to-investigate-a-product/
Thank you for the great info, I buy IM products almost everyday, (well I research them every day anyway) and with all the crap reviews it’s really hard to find any reliable information at all on most product launches. I will be using this info you count on that.
Thanks again, Brett
Brett…you are a HERO to the people!
You are anti-monopoly vs the big gurus or big business.
We definitely appreciate your honesty and hard work reviewing these products.
You have no idea how much time, money and frustration you have saved us.
Thank you again, my friend.
Just letting you know that Brett is totally wrong on his review… and he is moderating negative feedback on this post. People who filter comments on their posts are rarely the real deal. Feel free to connect with me if you would like to discuss this further.
This entire comment is an oxymoron. If I was filtering comments it would make no sense for you to make a comment saying I was filtering comments because I would just filter it out. The fact that you made this comment only indicates that you were sure that I would approve it.
Further you say I am totally wrong about this product, yet in your other comment, made just 10 minutes before this one you indicated “Im definitely giving this a try”. Tell me how can you be so sure Im totally wrong about something that you did not even try yet? That to me is interesting.
Sorry my friend you just made yourself look very foolish.
Interesting review given that most respectable internet marketers who have reviewed this product (and put their reputation on the line) have said that this product is awesome. People I have known for years and whose opinion I trust.
It seems you are the odd one out on this one Brett. I’m definitely giving it a try.
Yep I’m often the odd one. This is especially true given that I’m often the only one to be so honest. As for what ‘respectable marketers’ say, Im sorry I have to laugh at that. I can write a book on what goes on ‘behind the curtain’ with many ‘respectable marketers’. Here is what the customers say though:
100+ 2.33% $0.83 $35.72 50% 4.31%
Just a few days into the launch and it already has a refund rate that is nearly twice as high as its conversion rate. Having a refund rate that is double your sales rate is a feat that many a bad product cant even accomplish yet this one managed to do it within a couple of days.
110% agree with this, Brett didn’t even contact us about any errors, so we didn’t even know what it was (And I’ve never heard of anyone else having a problem)
Secondly, he unfortunately didn’t understand how deep it went, although it appears crazily easy to use!
AND THIRDLY! And most shocking… Brett didn’t like the fact is took a while to bring back the results… Now when in anything were instant results EVER better than anything else?
This review IMHO isn’t a good review due to the fact he didn’t understand it all, and didn’t even ask any questions
Lets be honest here Craig .. I linked you to the review over an hour before it went public. That would be ‘contacting you about errors’. Secondly I did speak to Peter about the product for 15 minutes or so asking him questions after linking you to the review. “Didnt understand it” is a very general retort. In fact its the retort of someone who does not have a better one. The keywords that this returned where not the best but where ok, they where similar to other products. But what you fail to understand is that a tool needs to be fast enough to make it feasible to use. 20 minutes + for a single search is far to slow to be viable.
Anyway thanks for the comment Craig!
Brett, just remember when dealing with zombies a double-tap is mandatory to stop them in their tracks!
Craig, were you one the techs who ignored my pleas (first for help and then for a refund for days? How deep does denial go before it becomes cult-like behavior?
Deprogramming anyone? 😉
Brett, you da man! A one man little Dutch Boy operation. Stemming the flood of sewage that is constantly threatening to flood our little IM world. By giving them the virtual finger – so to speak.* 😉
Peter Drew is a bit of a snake oil salesman who like to use OPM (other people’s money) to fund his software projects. Nothing wrong with that per se, but after 3-4 days of using the product and having –
1) Searches last 24-48 hours and never completing (and the extremely dubious logic of this improving with a bigger user base – think bit torrent – was full of holes).
2) One search actually completing – after 36 hours. ;0
At this point according to PD I was to be overjoyed at the prospect of drilling deeper for another millennium so as to get another few words with – drumroll please – no search volume and little to no buyer intent. Think “drones that fly over uneven terrain that can better be traversed by one-legged pirates” as the type of gold you can mine for your spammy content farms.
Well different strokes for different folks, but what burned my butt was his absolute refusal to even consider a refund (not asking for my precious hours wasted back) for a lousy $37!
This after spending hundreds of dollars on his other buggy offerings in the past and not asking for a refund. Oh but he did offer me “a deal” on more of his buggy software to compensate for mental anguish and time wasted.;)
LESSON LEARNED: Never (except under the most exceptional circumstances) buy from anyone that won’t stand behind their software. AND if you’re ever in a “Private/Secret” Facebook Group full of lemmings drinking the vendor’s Kool-Aid… run like hell.
Rock on Brett!
*No metaphors or allegories were intentionally harmed by the author of this post.