I realize that spying on the competition may not seem to be of great importance when taken as a stand-alone SEO concept without understanding what you can actually glean from doing so, or knowing what insights the available tools can offer.
 
This post will try to demystify the issue.
 
Why Spying on the Online Competition Can Benefit [...]

Google apparently started blocking ranking software like WebCEO and WPB a few days ago. The subsequent horrified outcry followed by hard-line rebuttals of ‘sooo old hat’ and worse was really interesting to watch and read.
 
At the risk of putting myself in the firing line, I’m going to try to put my point across in defense of [...]

This year has already resulted in numerous shifts in the search marketing space as we know it:
Trends From an Investors Perspective

Microsoft bid for Yahoo!, then withdrew the offer and Yahoo!’s shares dropped nearly 20%
Google and Yahoo! are still skirting around a search advertising partnership
Ask withdrew from main stream search to focus on women searchers
Google’s search [...]