QUOTE(Arbitrary @ Nov 22 2008, 09:40 PM)

I thought almost everyone knew of this particular Google "hack", so to speak. I've been using it for quite some time, mainly to function as a searching tool for sites that lack good searching functions. Google does seem to function quite well in that respect, better than most sites that have programmed their own native search engine. Though, I suppose that's to be expected since their entire business is about search.
I don't know if almost everyone knew this "hack", my purpose was to show an easy and simple way to do it, and BTW i use it in the same way as you do.
QUOTE(Arbitrary @ Nov 22 2008, 09:40 PM)

I'm not sure why you'd check your competitor's websites like that though--it's far more important to focus on the content than just on the keyword level within the content. I'm pretty sure those large news (especially ones with a print version) sites don't spend their times analyzing how many words of a certain kind to put into their content. That's for people who are obsessed with SEO and frankly, have crappy websites that aren't promotable without SEO. If your content is appealing, it'll get the needed backlinks and move up the ranks. Moreover, I think if you really wanted to do SEO effectively, just using Google's site:something.com keyword isn't going to cut it. There are better tools out there that do more detailed analyzing for the sole purpose of this, and it's better to use those instead.
The main reason to check your competitors websites using this kind of search is to view quickly if for some keywords your competitors have a better rank than you have, and thus be able to decide whether it is worth to optimize your website for those keywords with good content of course.
Best regards,
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