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I think I speak for many people when I say that Firefox is getting slower and slower, I for one have been putting up with the sluggish performance for a while now, having to settle for using the lighting fast Google Chrome ^[2] for less analytical SEO work.

The launch of Google Chrome Extensions ^[3] has now meant I have now finally been able to leave the sluggish Mozilla Firefox behind and speed my working life up with Google Chrome, yippee!

Switching to Chrome isn’t without its bad points. There are still certain functions that you may need Firefox for, but I’m now able to do the majority of my day to day SEO work in Chrome, here are the essential extensions and plug-ins required to get the best out of Chrome for SEO.

• SEO Status ^[4] – Fast and Lightweight Alexa rank and PageRank retrieval.
• Proxy Switchy ^[5] – Manage and switch between multiple proxy profiles quickly and easily.
• Webpage Screenshot ^[6]– Great for making those all important on page recommendations.
• SEO Site Tools ^[7] – Get link data from Google, Yahoo, Bing and SEMoz, highlights nofollow’d links plus loads more useful SEO type website analysis.
• Chrome SEO ^[8] – In a similar vain to SEO Site Tools it gives some of the same data plus a few extras that make it a worthy addition to your toolbar, all displayed neatly in one click.
• Google Similar pages ^[9] – One click displays the top few results for a Google [related:] search, always handy for discovering new sites.
• Site search – If you want to search the current domain you are on, this bookmarklet will perform the site:domain.com with a click of the button, just add the following to your bookmarks: javascript:d=document.domain;x=prompt(‘Google%20search%20′+d+’%20for:’,”);if(x){location.href=(‘http://www.google.com/search?as_q=’+x+’&as_sitesearch=’+d);}void(0);
• Google Chrome Developer Tools ^[10] – Part of Chrome as standard is the Chrome Developer Tools, it requires no plug-in and is a great way to delve deep into the code of a website.  Easy to get started, simply open a web page, in Google Chrome then:
  1. Select the Page menu at the top-right of your browser window, then select Developer -> Developer Tools or Control-Shift-J keys in Windows and Linux.
  2. You can also right-click on any page element and select Inspect element to get inspect specific parts of a site,
• Import Data from another Browser – If you’re worried about losing all your saved passwords history and bookmarks, fear not, simply click the options button then the “import data from another browser” and your done.

What’s missing?

• Web Developer Tools – Despite the CHrome Developer Tools one of the areas that Chrome falls short of Firefox is the lack of a decent web developer extension. Both Web Developer Tools ^[11] and Pendule ^[12]do the basics but lack important features such as the ability to disable JavaScript or cookies, Pendule has a far better UI but less functionality, hopefully in time they will develop a better UI and offer the same experience as the Firefox plug-in. In mean time to disable JavaScript or Cookies in Chrome:
  1. Go into the Chrome “options”
  2. Select the “Under the Bonnet” tab
  3. Click the “Content Settings” button
  4. Then either select the “JavaScript” or “Cookies” tab and then click disable each time.
  5. You can re-enable by clicking the cookie or JavaScript file icons next to the address bar.
• User agent switcher – If you want to view a website as googlebot or a different browser you’ll have to pass the user agent string in the command line at the moment, I’m sure a simply user agent switcher like the Firefox plug-in will be available soon.
• Live Http Header Response – So far I haven’t come across an extension that returns live results, but most can be achieved using the legendary Rex Swain HTTP Viewer ^[13].

Are there any other must have Chrome SEO Extensions or ones you’d like to see that I’ve missed out?