research link tools

Plans & Pricing

The recommended plan for your domain somedomain.com.

The recommended plan for your domain somedomain.com with approximately 40 backlinks is the LRT Superhero Brand plan.

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We will gladly give you a custom quote for your domains including somedomain.com . Just let us know.

Recommended plan: LRT Superhero Brand

The domain somedomain.com requires a custom plan., the domain somedomain.com requires an enterprise plan..

We were not sure about domain somedomain.com .

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Common Questions

Why should i sign up for linkresearchtools.

LinkResearchTools (LRT) combines link data from 25+ link data sources to give you a complete link profile analysis. We then clean, re-crawls and verify the link data for you. You get a new crawl with every report you create. No other SEO software provides you with as rich, fresh and accurate high-quality link data in one single central system as LinkResearchTools does. The completeness and accuracy of LinkResearchTools are not only legendary but also the reason why our founder Christoph C. Cemper built LRT for his daily work in link building and competitive research in the first place. Every other product just presents you the fragments of your backlink profile that it has in their index, we combine and clean all data pieces for you.

Are links still important for SEO?

The web is just content and links. You need both for ranking in search engines. This has always been the case since search engines started to crawl the web link-based with Google. Also, humans use links in whatever form to navigate the content on the web. Links are what makes the web, the web, otherwise, it would be just a bunch of "pages in a drawer." Google has always been a link-based search engine. It is still a link-based search engine. It will always be a link-based search engine. Links are the foundation of the web and the foundation of Google. Links are the foundation of SEO. Links are the most critical ranking factor for Google. Google has made a tradition of downplaying their importance, and some "SEO influencers" bought and amplified that. Google has done a lot of work over the years to detect spam links, manipulated links and paid links, but they are far from perfect in doing so. Google doesn't want you to see that, but many successful SEOs swear by their SEO success through links and spend a large chunk of their time and budget on links. Many high-profile SEOs use LRT and the Link Simulator™ in their daily work to decide which links to build and which not. Even Google themselves said: "Ranking without links is really, really hard."

Is the Disavow Tool still important for SEO?

The Disavow Tool is a great tool to ensure penalized links don't hurt your rankings. Buying and building links mean you risk getting penalized by Google. Receiving paid or spammed links passively is another risk you run when you have a successful website. The Disavow Tool gives you complete control over your backlink profile and what Google counts as links to your website. You can use that tool. Google has stated that they discover unnatural links and neutralize them for you. Yet many of our users recover penalized websites by doing a full link audit and uploading the disavow files to the disavow tool. With great power comes great responsibility. If misused or without a complete understanding of the tool, the Disavow Tool can hurt your rankings. Over the years also, a couple pretty naive clones of our Link Detox® and Link Detox Genesis® technology have been published. These tools are not as accurate as ours and can lead to many wrong decisions. Of course, you can trust Google to fix all your SEO problems and rankings, but what's their motivation to do so?

Do I need a subscription to use LRT?

All our products are subscription based. You will be billed monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis as subscription term.

What payment options do you offer?

You can pay via VISA, Mastercard, American Express, and Paypal. We also offer SEPA direct debit for bank accounts in all European Countries. You can also pay via debit cards like VISA Electron or Postepay. We also offer payment via invoice and bank wire for annual accounts or order size of around EUR 3000 or higher.

Which limitations apply in the trial version?

The trial version does not allow export of any data from the system, does not include Link Detox Boost . In addition the Trial plan is limited, like all plans, to the specified Link Crawl Budget . This means that domains with bigger backlink profiles than the specified Link Crawl Budget require purchase of additional Link Crawl Budget to run.

Can I export the results of the analysis reports?

Except in the limited trial Yes. We support export as XLS, CSV and PDF for all results. These results are the links combined, cleaned, recrawled and therefore verified to be LRT quality for you. A raw data export of all the link data we got from our data sources that went into the analysis is not possible. For disavowed links we of course let you export the full disavow file , and we keep track of all the changes to it historically in our system, like a version control system.

I have a domain that exceeds the Link Crawl Budget for my plan. Do I have to upgrade?

No, you can just buy more Link Crawl Budget with an add-on. Note however, that the most cost-effective way is an upgrade to a bigger plan if you need more on an ongoing basis.

What happens to unused Link Crawl Budget?

If you don't use up all the Link Crawl Budget or other add-ons in the billing period, it will be reset, i.e. be lost. This is like with a mobile phone providers data allowance resetting every month or so. So in general all allowances mentioned above are allocated resources per billing period and cannot be taken over to the next billing period.

Can I use all my Link Crawl Budget at once?

Yes, with an annual or bi-annual plan, you get all your Link Crawl Budget with your signup. So when you have months with more business than others, you might as well use half or all of your Link Crawl Budget in one month only.

Is SEO even legal?

Of course, SEO is legal. The results of Link Detox were confirmed by a German court. There is no doubt that SEO is legal. SEO means the optimization of your website, cleaning up the risky links, optimizing your anchor texts and your overall link profile. There's nothing illegal about that. It will just boost your website's rankings. You will do better than your competitors. You will get more traffic, more leads and more conversions.

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12 Great Link Building Tools That Are Essential To Your Success

Set up your link-building campaigns for success with these essential link-building tools for research, outreach, and reporting.

Link-building strategies, along with SEO tools , have certainly changed over the years.

Since the old automated link-building tools that automatically placed content like KontentMachine or GSA’s Search Engine Ranker, modern tools have moved to manual research and outreach platforms.

Tools that many of my link-building colleagues and I use today look more like ones used for public relations (PR) rather than link-building. However, there are still tools specific to link building that aren’t going anywhere.

These can be divided into four categories:

• Link research.
• Prospecting and outreach.
• AI-powered tools.

Emerging technologies powered by AI can make the link-building process easier.

Link Research Tools

Link research is vital to figuring out what type of sites you should be approaching. This includes establishing quality criteria, categories of sites, authority metrics, and others.

Majestic and Ahrefs are two research tools that provide large databases and robust reporting.

I’ve included both of these sites as I constantly see each having data that the other doesn’t.

You may find some links to your competitors’ sites in Majestic that aren’t listed in Ahrefs and vice versa.

These tools can be used together to build a comprehensive list of sites to analyze. As with many SEO tools, the pricing depends on how many features your team needs.

1. Majestic

• Pricing: $49.99 per month with one user for the ‘Lite’ package. $99.99 per month for the “Pro” package, which they recommend for SEO agencies and consultants.
• Payment options: Monthly or receive a discount for an annual subscription.

Here are some recommendations on using it and what reports should influence your link-building.

• Topics: This data can be used to identify the types of sites you should be generating links from. Consider running this report on the link profiles for top-ranking sites, then finding sites that fit into similar categories.
• Referring Domains: Use this to evaluate the number of unique domains you should focus on building for your site. This also offers a look into the trust/citation flow distribution (count of domains by trust/citation flow).
• Pricing: $99 per month with only one user for the ‘Lite’ plan. $199 per month for the “Standard” plan.

In contrast to Majestic, Ahrefs has some reports that are much easier to run inside the tool. It certainly costs more, but if you want more data, then Ahrefs is the right choice.

Here are reports to use in Ahrefs over Majestic:

• Identify competitors’ most linked content to influence your content strategies.
• Identify the type of sites that link to the content you will produce.
• Pages > Best by link growth: This is a “trend” report providing content that has been generating links over the last 30 days. Find content here that is receiving a rapid number of links and create more robust content.

Prospecting And Outreach Tools

Finding highly relevant sites that may link to your content is the most excruciating part of link building.

You can create a large list of sites and bulk outreach to save time, but when evaluating your link-building success on links gained per hour and the quality of those links, it’s best to handle prospecting manually or in a semi-automated approach.

I’ll go through five tools, Pitchbox , BuzzSumo , Hunter.io , BrightLocal , and HARO .

These tools can be used for the most popular link-building strategies.

3. Pitchbox

• Pricing: Averages $500+ per month.
• Payment options: Prices are dependent on an individual walkthrough with Pitchbox.

Pitchbox is one of the pricier tools on the market compared to email tools like MailChimp, but integrated prospecting helps reduce the time to qualify sites.

The prospecting sites list builder and SEO metrics integrated right into the opportunities report make the tool stand out.

4. BuzzSumo

• Pricing: $99 per month for the “Pro” package. $179 per month for the “Plus” package. There’s a pared-down free version with limited searches per month.
• Payment options: There is also a free version with limited features.

This is an excellent tool for building lists of blogs, influencers, and authors. Out of all the prospecting tools on the list, BuzzSumo has the best filtering options.

You can use the tool for a lot of purposes, but for link building, these are two effective use cases:

• Identifying authors: The content research and influencers sections provide lists of authors/influencers that are searchable by keywords in the content they shared or produced. One fantastic use for this is to search through the “most shared” report and find influencers that received more than 2,000 shares of their content, then outreach to them to share yours. This can yield a lot of natural links.
• Identifying sharers/backlinks: The second use goes a layer deeper than the first, finding those that have shared the content. Pull a list of shares or backlinking websites by content, then create similar but better content.

5. Hunter.io

• Pricing: Starts at free. The first two upgraded packages are $49 per month and $99 per month.
• Payment options: Free for 25 monthly searches up to $399 per month for 30,000 searches.

This browser extension finds email addresses for easy contact options.

It helps cut down on time spent sifting through About pages. You can also take it a step further and use the tool for outreach.

6. BrightLocal

• Pricing: $29-$79 per month, depending on package size.
• Payment options: You can also pay for the citation builder, reviews, or enterprise.

Citation building is important for local SEO and should be considered a link-building project.

One of the tools with the best value for submitting and managing citations is BrightLocal.

There are two components: citation monitoring and citation building. The tool also allows you to figure out how you’re ranking based on the local competition.

• Pricing: Starts at free. The first paid plan is $19 per month, which adds alerts and search functionality.
• Payment options: The free options offer media options delivered to your email three times a day and up to $149/month for premium.

While this tool is traditionally used in the journalism world, it can also help link builders. It connects you with credible sources and allows you to build natural backlinks.

Reporting Tools

Although many of the tools in the previous section have reporting functionality built in, I’ve found them lacking in custom reporting or the ability to associate links to ranking performance.

These tools solve that issue; AgencyAnalytics and Cyfe .

8. Agency Analytics

• Pricing: $12 per month, per campaign. $18 per month per campaign for custom reporting features.
• Payment options: Pay annually to save money.

Agency Analytics automatically populates the dashboard with data from Moz and Majestic and connects that data to critical performance metrics, like ranking and organic traffic.

Qualified traffic that converts to leads or sales is the purpose of link-building and SEO efforts, so reporting needs to make a connection between them.

• Pricing: $19 per month for one user, with higher tiers for more users.
• Payment options: Unlimited users for $89/month.

This tool can be built out as a hybrid between Google Sheets and Agency Analytics, meaning it’s very customizable but can also automatically and easily aggregate data from multiple sources to create a meaningful report.

AI-Powered Tools

AI-powered tools can significantly simplify otherwise complex and time-consuming tasks. Remember that some of your processes will require a human touch, so always evaluate how performance is impacted when integrating AI into your processes.

The following tools, Link Whisper , Postaga , and CTRify use AI to discover opportunities and automate processes.

10. Link Whisper

• Pricing: $77 per month for one site, with additional plans for more sites.
• Payment options: One to 50 site licenses.

Link Whisper is useful for internal link building.

AI technologies offer automatic link suggestions as content is produced. It can also help you recognize old content that needs more links directed to it.

The tools also automate links based on keywords and offer internal link reporting. It’s pretty all-inclusive and can help speed up internal link-building automatically.

11. Postaga

• Pricing: $84 per month for one account with five users. $250 per month for 30 accounts with unlimited users.
• Payment options: Save by paying annually.

Postaga does everything from finding opportunities to initiating outreach.

AI comes into play with the outreach assistant, which finds relevant information from influencers to include in emails. You can also enter your domain into the tool to find relevant campaign ideas.

• Pricing: A free version. $197 or $497, depending on the plan.
• Payment options: Single payment.

CTRify is a WordPress plugin that is great for content creation.

All it takes is a single keyword, and the AI creates the content you need for a specific campaign. You can then automatically publish the posts – it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

I’ve curated this list with the intent to offer a tool for every reader, providing enterprise-level affordable solutions and highly technical tools.

There is diversity in the available tools, and you will need to select the right one for the job.

You don’t need to have a $1,000 monthly tool budget to be a link builder, but all of the tasks will take time. Allocating your time and budget in the right combination improves business outcomes.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Kevin is the Founder & Head of Digital PR Strategy at PureLinq, a provider of digital PR for SEO services. After ...

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Link Research Tools – A Comprehensive Review

Linkbuilding is one of the things we are intricate with in our SEO Services . One of the best tools to use out there is  Link Research Tools . I know I have reviewed them a handful of times already so this time, it’s going to be a bit different. I’m going to cover all the improvements they’ve made from my last review of them up to today.

A flashback to the past would reveal that back in 2014, I made a review on one of the best alternative tools post-Yahoo Site Explorer, Link Research Tools (LRT) . It was quite a comprehensive review of all the LRT tools available at the time. 2 years have come and gone in the blink of an eye. Join me for a journey of exploration and find out how LRT has evolved in these last couple of years.

Backlink Analysis

Quick Backlinks Tool (QBL)

If you need to get an analysis on your backlink profile but you’re running short on time, then this Quick Backlinks Tool is for you. It offers a quick overview of your backlinks with the most important SEO metrics for each of the links in the report.

There are a bunch of settings that you can tinker with from restricting link sources to show only certain domains (such as .edu and .gov) to setting how you want your dropped links to be handled. There are even bookmarklets that makes the whole process even quicker.

So, of course, I tried it out upon looking at the report, you’ll see several data and metrics least of which are LRT’s own set of SEO metrics . With Google PageRank having been “killed off” by Google last April 2016, it was essential to have a replacement metric (apart from other well-known metrics being used today such as Moz’ Domain Authority and Page Authority ). It’s a good thing that LRT was up to the task.

• This metric measures the strength of a webpage based on the number and power of links.
• This metric helps you evaluate the trustworthiness of a link by checking the “trust value” inherited from other known and trusted website (such as those coming from the .edu domain).
• This metric combines the values of the first two metrics listed above and shows the quickest evaluation of your links’ overall impact.

So apart from LRT’s own set of metrics, a nice touch here is the inclusion of an anchor text cloud that’s easy to interpret as well as the other usual data such as link types, link status, country popularity, and the like. You can even see your data in tabular format. This definitely proves that the QBL tool is great way to get fast and easy analysis of your website’s link profile.

Backlink Profiler (BLP)

Now here’s what any good backlink tool should have  – a Backlink Profiler . As the name suggests, it gives you a very comprehensive look at the backlink profile of your website as well as your competitors if you wish. The main difference between this one and QBL is that the former offers a full suite of data and metrics compared to the latter. One of the unique features of this tool is that data is gathered from 24 various backlink sources and then combined into one report.

As you can see, it looks almost identical to the QBL report I generated except I added a new category (Link Profile by Metrics) which is shown in a histogram format. As you can see, there’s quite a number of good and powerful domains that are linked to my website with 828 of them having a LRT Power Domain rating of 4. One drawback to all this available data at your fingertips is the time it takes to generate one report. The report I used for this example took roughly 20 minutes to finish generating. If you need to make a full audit of your website’s backlink profile and you have all the time in the world, then this is perfect for you.

Link Audit and Recovery

Link Detox (DTOX)

There’s nothing quite like being “hit on the back” by a sudden slap of a Google penalty. If your website has ever been hit by a penalty by Google, then this Link Detox tool will be your best friend. This tool can help you find the bad links that harm your website, remove it from your profile, recover from the penalty slapped on your website, and prevent it from happening again. So can it actually deliver all of this?

For this test, I activated the NoFollow Evaluation mode (which basically means that I’ll also be getting data for NoFollow links as I don’t believe that Google completely ignores it). Apart from the usual audit of the Link Profile, there’s also an option to audit your Disavow File (if any) and any other opportunities to build new links (you have to upload a file with a list of your backlinks in order to do this).

Also, note that this tool also requires patience as it takes time to collate the data. However, once it’s done, you’ll be gifted with a wealth of information related to the Link Detox Risk (DTOXRISK) metric which will help you estimate the chances of your website in being penalized by Google. In this case, I first tried to generate the report without classifying my keywords and I got a High DTOXRISK result. After classifying it to around 70%, it resulted in an average DTOXRISK rating. So, my advice before using this tool is to make sure that at least 80% of your keywords are classified. Otherwise, the results may be unreliable.

The tool also allowed me to see the percentages of links that have low, average, or high DTOXRISK ratings as well as several other metrics that can help me determine if the links are indeed a magnet for Google penalties. This is certainly a good step towards making sure that my website stays penalty-free. There’s even a link to run the Link Detox Boost tool which is what I’ll cover in the next section.

Link Detox Boost (BOOST)

If your website is hit with a penalty by Google and you follow the steps to get bet back into Google’s “good graces” and if you find the process to be too slow, look no further than the Link Detox Boost tool . Google will only take into account your disavow file after it has completely re-crawled all the links in it. So the whole point of the tool is to “boost” or speed up this process. You can even see the date when Google’s last crawl was so you can make sure if all your links have indeed been re-crawled.

Strongest Subpages Tool (SSPT)

This is one of the tools covered by my 2014 review of LRT – the Strongest Subpages Tool . It goes through each sub-folder and sub-page in a certain domain in order to find the most ideal placement for one’s link. So if you’ve had trouble finding that perfect spot for a guest post, for instance, make sure to keep this tool handy. One of the biggest differences between the tool then and now would be the use of the LRT Power*Trust metric instead of just “Strength” (although it pretty much means the same thing). With 541 pages being generated (compared to 291 previously), as expected once again, my homepage is considered to be the “strongest” sub-page in my website followed by my article on Link Exchange . So if any of you have a decent resource for this article that can convince me to link to your website, you’re welcome to try.

Link Juice Recovery Tool (LJR)

Yet another one of the tools that I reviewed previously is the Link Juice Recovery Tool . If you’ve ever experienced clicking on a link and then arriving on a “dead” page, then it must’ve been a disappointing experience to say the least. The LJR tool helps prevent this from happening by finding the missing pages and reclaiming them. This would best be used when you create or transfer your website to a new domain and you want to re-create those lost links.

Backlink Monitoring

Link Alerts (LA)

Link Alerts has also been covered by my previous review but let’s do a little recap anyway. In a nutshell, it allows you to monitor the backlinks that your website acquires as time passes. This is a unique report because it is generated automatically and is done so on a recurring basis as soon as you set it up. This is the ideal tool to use when you want to find out the most trending types of backlinks and capitalize on its opportunities whether it be the new backlinks from your own website or your competitors’.

Link Check Tool (LCT)

Competitive Analysis

Competitive Landscape Analyzer (CLA)

As can be seen in the image above, several metrics can once again be chosen for the report. In this example, we can see the ratio of DoFollow and NoFollow links of the SEO Hacker website and the chosen competitors. There’s no solid rule when it comes to the most appropriate ratio of DoFollow vs. NoFollow links however, if we assume that a 70:30 ratio is the ideal ratio in this case, then the SEO Hacker website is almost right on the money compared to its competitors. If you wish to drill down to more specific sub-folders or individual pages, this is possible with this tool. You’ll want to do this if you want to save time as well as do a focused competitive analysis.

Competitive Link Velocity (CLV)

Upon generating the report, you’ll be able to see a heatmap-like chart. The darker the shade, the more links were built during that specific time period. In this example, both SEO Hacker and Woosa Media had roughly the same link growth rate during the mid-2014. For October 2015, SEO Hacker’s link growth was higher compared to its competitors. Spikes do happen naturally at times like if there’s a special event or if a post went viral. In other cases, this can happen unnaturally as a result of negative SEO. If you place the cursor over any part of the heatmap, you can find more details such as linking pages, types of links, redirects, and other data in order to get a better idea of what might have caused the sudden spike or slow down of your website’s link growth.

Quick Domain Compare (QDC)

Do you have an emergency meeting and are required to present a quick competitive analysis? Then the Quick Domain Compare (QDC) tool will surely help you out. Generating this report only takes a few seconds so you can even generate this report while you’re having that meeting if you want and you’ll still save face.

From LRT Power*Trust and other LRT metrics to the social media metrics, this report can give you a side-by-side comparison of various SEO metrics that are important in making fast and well-informed decisions. So for the next time you’re caught in the middle of the meeting being unprepared, make sure to keep this handy tool in mind.

Competitive Link Detox (CDTOX)

If you want to make sure to get the strongest and lowest-risk links from your competitors, then this Competitive Link Detox (CDTOX) tool is just for you. Not all the links of your competitors may be what you’d like to get for your own website. It is important to determine which links are considered as “natural” thus, beneficial to your website.

In this example, SEO Hacker’s Domain DTOXRISK rating is below average while its two competitors have High Domain DTOXRISK ratings. This means that the chances of getting a Google penalty are much slimmer for the SEO Hacker website versus its competitors. In this same report, you’ll also be able to see the strong backlinks of your competitors. If you go to the stores slices section, you’ll find a selection “Strong links of my competitors with low DTOXRISK”. This will display your competitors’ strong backlinks which you’ll want to obtain for yourself. This is what you’ll want to get out of this tool the most.

Competitive Keyword Analyzer (CKA)

If you’ve always had problems figuring out which keywords you should target for your website in order to beat out your competition, then this Competitive Keyword Analyzer (CKA)  is the tool for you. From here, you will be able to determine the keywords that are highly profitable and achievable at the same time. These are what you call the “low hanging fruit” keywords. You can enter up to 10 keywords that you think are the most profitable for your website and from this initial list, the CKA tool will find other potential keywords for you to target.

Just like the Competitive Link Velocity (CLV) tool, this one also features a heatmap which gives an easy-to-view table of each keywords and your pre-selected metrics. The different color shades of green represent any irregularities that may be present. There’s even a table which shows well-detailed results for each keyword in the report. All the chosen metrics and filters that you’ll want can be seen here. This is truly a powerful tool to use for competitive keyword research.

Quality Checks

Link Opportunities Review Tool (LORT)

If you have a list of links that you think are good opportunities to build on, it might be wise to check again. You need to be sure that these links pose little to no risk to your website. Here’s where the Link Opportunities Review Tool (LORT) comes in. This tool can be used to evaluate the link opportunities you have selected to build on right before you actually build on it. The LORT report can use the existing Link Detox report to achieve faster results.

In this example, you can see the links with their corresponding DTOXRISK ratings, Power*Trust rating, so on and so forth. All of these metrics can show users the risks behind getting the same links for one’s website. For added convenience to users, there’s even a bookmarklet for LORT which users can use as they do their link prospecting. For users who have just recovered from a Google penalty or who are just really careful when it comes to monitoring their link profiles, then this tool is what you certainly need.

Bulk URL Analyzer Tool (Juice Tool)

Link Prospecting

Common Backlinks Tool (CBLT)

What’s better than finding the best links from your competitors? It’s finding the best COMMON links between you and your competitors. This way, you can be more assured of its quality because of the number of competitors that have the same backlink source. The Common Backlinks Tool (CBLT) is just the tool for the job. Up to 50 URLs can be entered whether it be pasted one by one or through a list.

Under the Co# column, you can see the number of common links for each domain. The other usual metrics are present as well which can be used as a support to determine the quality of the backlink sources.

Contact Finder (CF)

When you’re doing your link building campaigns, one of the most important steps to take is to contact the webmasters of the websites you’ve chosen to get a backlink from. This is where the Contact Finder (CF) tool takes center stage.

There’s really not much of a difference between the Contact Finder that was reviewed previously and at present. It still provides information such as emails, phone numbers, social media accounts, etc. In this example though, a lot of the information is blank. This could be due to the privacy protection protocols set in place by the webmasters themselves. Still, this tool can be useful in other instances where it’s not easy to find the contact information of webmasters.

SERP Research Tool (SERP)

This SERP Research Tool is yet another excellent tool to use for link prospecting. It pulls the first 200 search results from the search engines from the keywords entered and shows the various metrics that can be chosen when generating the report. From the type of website that you’re looking for to the specific search engine that you want to use, this report allows you to choose all of that.

In this example, just like in my previous review, the report showed more than 2,000 prospects for SEO Hacker. This definitely beats having to go through each page in the SERPs just to collate possible link prospects.

Missing Links Tool (MLT)

The Missing Links Tool (MLT)  finds the best backlinks from your competitors that you don’t have for your own website. This can be used side-by-side with the Common Backlinks Tool in order to find the best backlink prospects. Apart from manually entering the URLs, you can also opt to use the “Find Competing Pages” feature, enter your chosen keyword, and have up to 10 competing domains pop up.

Just like with the SERP Research tool and Contact Finder tool, there isn’t much of a difference with regards to the look of the reports from the previous review and with the present one. It still provides quality data based on the metrics that were chosen in generating the report.

Link Juice Thief (LJT)

This Link Juice Thief (LJT) tool is similar with all the other competitive analysis tools reviewed above such as the Common Backlinks Tool and Missing Links tool. The main difference is the approach because the idea is to get backlinks from the domains/pages that your competitors are linking to. This way, they would be indirectly linking to you as well.

Once again, there’s not much difference between the previous review about this tool and this one in terms of features. It still allows you to see the number of links that were generated, the different metrics in bar graph format, and filter out the ones you only want to see.

Free Browser Extensions

Link Redirect Trace Extension

For an even more seamless experience for link redirect analysis, LRT has developed the Link Redirect Trace Extension . It brings the Link Redirect Trace Technology to the web browser and as a result, it provides an efficient way to track redirects and headers while browsing through your chosen website. It can detect every redirect hop (for example, what redirect type was used…is it 301, 302, 303, so on and so forth), analyze robots.txt, and analyze HTTP header X-Robots Noindex, Nofollow, NoArchive among others. As of now, it is only available for use in Chrome browsers so hopefully, it can also be made for use in Firefox in the near future.

LRT Power*Trust – Google Toolbar PageRank Replacement

All in all, a lot of these tools have very similar features especially with the more than 90 SEO metrics that can be used in generating the report. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that generating one similar-looking report will yield the same results as the other one. So, it would be ideal to run as many of these reports as you need in order to come up with the best analysis and recommendations for your website.

Try Link Research Tools today . You won’t be disappointed.

Sean Si is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines . He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker . He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook , LinkedIn or Twitter . Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines .

Free Link Checker

Analyze all links in seconds - advanced and fast export of link data.

This is the best free link checker you can get. You've probably you been waiting for this your whole life!

• Count the total links the page
• Count the number of live links
• Count the number of unverified links
• Count the number of live links broken links
• Different link scope for internal, links, within same root domain and external links
• Count the number of Follow vs No-Follow links for every link scope.
• Go to fancy review and export function (see below)

Powerful link detail table and export features, as you are used from the LRT main product.

• Full dynamic link detail table and export to Excel and CSV action
• Show links by network status
• Show links by link scope
• Show links by Follow vs. No-Follow
• Filter links by keyword

And a super powerful HTML code brower for every backlink

• Mouse over any link to see details
• Measure strength and trust of the target page where the link points to – if this is very low, this could be a problematic or new page
• Full HTML Source Code to review and possibly spot spammy things
• Blue Marker for own domains

Other products features and benefits

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LITERATURE REVIEW SOFTWARE FOR BETTER RESEARCH

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Austin Health, Australia

As a full-time researcher, Litmaps has become an indispensable tool in my arsenal. The Seed Maps and Discover features of Litmaps have transformed my literature review process, streamlining the identification of key citations while revealing previously overlooked relevant literature, ensuring no crucial connection goes unnoticed. A true game-changer indeed!

Ritwik Pandey

Doctoral Research Scholar – Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning

Using Litmaps for my research papers has significantly improved my workflow. Typically, I start with a single paper related to my topic. Whenever I find an interesting work, I add it to my search. From there, I can quickly cover my entire Related Work section.

David Fischer

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Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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South Oregon University, USA

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Ali Mohammed-Djafari

Director of Research at LSS-CNRS, France

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Daniel Fuller

Clarkson University, USA

As a person who is an early researcher and identifies as dyslexic, I can say that having research articles laid out in the date vs cite graph format is much more approachable than looking at a standard database interface. I feel that the maps Litmaps offers lower the barrier of entry for researchers by giving them the connections between articles spaced out visually. This helps me orientate where a paper is in the history of a field. Thus, new researchers can look at one of Litmap's "seed maps" and have the same information as hours of digging through a database.

Baylor Fain

Postdoctoral Associate – University of Florida

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13 Market Research Tools: Best in Class for 2023

Most market research tools are designed to make it quicker and easier to find relevant data . Whatever the market, product, or purpose, the right research tools can do just that.

But, let’s be honest, some do it far better than others.

Whether you’re an enterprise firm with complex needs and a budget to suit or a smaller business needing free market research tools, read on to discover which online tools for market research are hot right now.

Note: The top market research tools list has been collated using review platforms like G2 , along with direct feedback I collected from over 500 business leaders in June, 2o22.

#1 Best overall market research tool: Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence

Most-loved feature: The Benchmarking tool

We might be a little biased, but this really is the fastest way to see how you measure up against competitors in any sector or location. Analyze market leaders and rising stars to unpack and track their digital success instantly.

Quick Explainer

Similarweb Research Intelligence is a single source of truth for the online world. Giving any business the ability to quickly analyze the online aspects of any industry or market in an instant. It displays critical insights in a way that makes it easy to view trends, competitive performance, audience insights, growth opportunities, and more. It’s the only market research analysis tool that brings together data from desktop, mobile web, and apps to provide a complete view of the digital landscape.

Key abilities

• Competitive benchmarking
• Market research
• Company research tool
• Audience analysis
• Consumer journey tracker
• Mobile app intelligence

Freemium Version: Yes, there is a lite version of the product that provides limited data for a single user, and a single location.

Free Trial: Yes, there’s a 7-day trial available. Try it out here .

Ongoing Subscription: Yes, you can pay monthly or annually for a subscription. Different levels are available, and each package is tailored. Review pricing and plans for Similarweb here.

Like what you’ve seen so far?

See our market-leading digital research tool in action in this quick 2-minute clip.

#2 Best free market research tool: Think with Google

Most-loved feature: Find my Audience

A way to discover new audiences on YouTube based on things like habits, interests, and intended plans to purchase.

Think with Google is a suite of digital research tools that curate resources from a huge pool of data across the web. It presents them as insights that aren’t typically available elsewhere. It’s a unique way to view trends, insights, and stats. Data isn’t offered in real-time but serves more as a library of figures and facts that take the form of articles, videos, interviews, case studies, and more. In addition to being a place people can go for forward-looking perspectives and data, there are several tools designed to help marketers.

Key functions

• High-level insights into most local or national markets
• Behind the scenes look at cross-platform digital campaigns
• Consumer insights
• Deck-ready stats (not in real-time)
• A range of tools to inform marketing objectives and actions

Freemium Version: The entire suite of market intelligence tools is free.

Free Trial: As a free market research tool, no trial is needed.

Ongoing Subscription: You can subscribe to a newsletter, but not the product.

#3 Best digital research tool for content and FAQ development: Answer the Public

Most-loved feature: Search listening alerts

A pro feature that sends you weekly emails that indicate how search behaviors shift over time. It takes the specific phrase or keywords you’re tracking in the platform and updates you weekly.

Quick Explainer 

Discover the questions people are asking online about key terms, products, or services. It’s designed to help content teams and website owners develop new content ideas, and relevant FAQs that are based on the types of queries people ask online.

• Track important keywords and phrases
• Get weekly emails about changes in search behavior
• Enter any keyword to uncover relevant questions or search terms
• Folders to help organize your research

Freemium Version: Yes. You get a limited number (3) of searches per day.

Free Trial: No.

Ongoing Subscription: Yes. You can pay monthly or annually for this service. Pay-monthly fees are a flat rate of $99. Discounts are offered for yearly subscriptions.

#4 Best tool for market research surveys: SurveyMonkey

Most-loved feature: Question bank

A library of hundreds of questions, pre-written by survey methodologists.

As far as market research surveys go, it’s the leading online research tool for surveys worldwide. With plans to suit the individual through to the enterprise, it’s a feature-rich, easy-to-use platform that encompasses creation, collection, and analysis under one roof. Surveys are optimized for any device and integrate with platforms like Zoom, Salesforce, Marketo, and more.

Key functions 

• Create and send unlimited surveys, quizzes, and polls
• Pop-up online surveys
• Mobile app access to create, send and analyze surveys on-the-go
• Team collaboration function (unlocked with a team plan)
• Survey builder
• Customization and branded surveys (available with advantage or premier plans only)

Freemium Version: Yes

Free Trial: Occasionally, free trials are offered for premium plans.

Ongoing Subscription: Yes, you can pay annually or monthly. There are three different plans to choose from, ranging from $25 to $129 per month.

Helpful: Check out our blog and see 18 different ways to use market research surveys .

#5 Best online research tool for marketplaces: Similarweb Shopper Intelligence

Most-loved feature: Cross-shopping analysis

Cross-shopping analysis shows you how loyal a segment of customers is to a brand, along with what other brands they browsed or bought from. Uncover competitors and discover new partnership opportunities; these are game-changing insights if you sell on any marketplace.

Similarweb Shopper Intelligence is a type of online market research tool that helps you uncover and analyze browsing and buying behavior across marketplaces. Using its data, businesses can track category, product, and brand performance with ease. It helps ecommerce organizations to detect potential threats, unearth new product or category opportunities, discover new potential partnerships, and optimize search strategy and performance.

• Monitor consumer demand for any product, brand, or category
• Retail search strategy optimization
• Consumer behavior insights
• Track cross-shopping, loyalty, and purchase frequency
• Analyze brand awareness

Note: This solution uses a unique data methodology via multiple networks and partnerships. At the time of writing, there is no other consumer behavior insights tool for market research that offers this quality of data for marketplaces.

Freemium Version: No.

Free Trial: Yes. There is usually a 7-day trial available here .

Ongoing Subscription: The price is determined by things like the number of categories and/or domains you want to access. Each quote is customized to a client’s specific needs.

Want to know a little more?

Watch this quick clip to see the best ecommerce digital market research tool in action.

#6 Best market research tool for brand tracking: Latana

Most-loved feature: MoE (margin of error) Readings

To deliver transparency on data confidence levels, Latana’s dashboard includes a feature that allows clients to toggle-on, or toggle-off, margin of error (MoE) readings on all data points. These are highlighted using a traffic-light system of confidence (red=low confidence, orange=medium confidence, and green=high confidence). This small feature makes a big impact — it helps clients to correctly interpret the data and to visibly see quality shortcomings.

Latana is a B2C brand tracking tool that provides granular insights about online audiences. It helps organizations understand how key segments of consumers feel about brands and portrays relevant standings vs. industry rivals.

• Focus on niche consumer segments that matter to your business
• Uncover rival’s audience data and identify opportunities to grow
• Understand brand perception, and track how it changes over time
• Discover the most well-known brands in your industry
• Track rival’s brand awareness across gender, age income, location, and education
• Find out the main purchase drivers for your industry
• Infrastructure gives reach to over 6 billion smartphone users globally for representative brand opinions

I caught up with Latana’s CMO, Angeley Mullens. Here’s what she has to say about their offering.

Ongoing Subscription: Pricing for Latana isn’t available online. All packages are tailored to individual brands and their specific needs.

Enjoy 360 Visibility 24/7

Get the data you need to adapt to market changes and industry trends in an instant.

#7  Best research tool for social media listening: Hootsuite

Most-loved feature: Multi-channel insights

It’s a legacy feature, but one which makes it the best online research tool for social listening and monitoring. Having the ability to easily schedule posts, ad campaigns, and handle responses for every social media channel from within a single platform is what makes this a market-leading digital research tool.

Hootsuite continues to claim the number 1 spot on G2’s list of digital research tools for social media monitoring . It’s a tool to help you manage all aspects of business social media, across multiple channels, in a single platform. As well as being able to manage your socials, it also keeps you up-to-date with the latest trends and activities of your rival’s social media channels.

• Publish and schedule social media posts
• Measure cross-platform results
• Message management
• Social media trend analysis
• Social media ad-campaign management

Freemium Version: Yes. You can get a free version that supports 2 social accounts and 1 user.

Free Trial: Yes. A 30-day free trial is available here .

Ongoing Subscription: There are four plans; professional, team, business, and enterprise; ranging from $49-$739.

#8 Best digital research tool for prospecting: Similarweb Sales Intelligence

Most-loved feature: Insights generator tool

The insights generator shows you unique facts for your prospects and accounts; with complete visibility into their digital strategy and performance. It’s ideal for refining sales and marketing efforts while staying focused on growth.

Similarweb Sales Intelligence helps organizations find viable prospects by showing you who to reach out to, when to do it, and how to capture their attention. The lead generator tool helps you find the right prospects, and key insights help create engaging outreach emails. For sales departments, ecommerce and mar-tech sectors, this type of digital research tool can take prospecting and engagement to a completely new level; along with revenue and growth.

Key functions: 

• Lead generation and enrichment
• Digital insights for 100M+ ecommerce websites, publishers, and advertisers
• Fraud detection
• Sales engagement
• SFDC integration

Free Trial: Yes, if you would like a free trial, please request that here.

Ongoing Subscription: Prices for this digital market research tool varies depending on the package and options chosen. Grab a live demo of the product and get a tailored quote here .

Insightful : If you’re looking at market research tools for the ecommerce industry, bookmark our Ecommerce Trends and Predictions for 2023 to read later.

#9 Best market research analysis tool for data visualization: Tableau

Most-loved feature : Connects to almost any data source

As a clear market leader, and a no-brainer for larger organizations with business intelligence analytics and teams. Tableau leads the way in online research tools for data visualization . It connects to a huge range of data sources and pulls information into a highly-appealing dashboard that is designed to make it easier and faster to explore and manage data . It takes data from platforms like Similarweb, then combines it with other data sources before presenting crisp, clear, insights that have the power to shape strategies and drive key transformations.

• Lightning-fast analytics
• Smart dashboards for richer insights
• Live connection to almost any data source, with automatic updates
• Drag-and-drop style UI: easy to use

Freemium Version: No. However, students and teachers get a year’s free access to the platform.

Free Trial: Yes. You can subscribe to a free 30-day trial.

Ongoing Subscription: Most plans are offered annually, with prices ranging from $15 per month upwards. The price depends on whether you use their hosted or on-premise versions, the number of users, and the inclusion of specific plugins.

#10 Best market research tool for UX testing: Loop11

Most-loved feature: Online usability testing

This feature analyzes the usability of a website with users performing live tasks on a site. It helps you understand user behavior, and shows how and why a website is used.

Loop11 is a market research tool that provides usability testing to help organizations build better websites and products. It comes with a pack of useful features that provide both moderated and unmoderated testing, helping businesses to find the right audience to test prototypes and products. It’s designed to help you see how appealing a product is to a particular audience, determine their preferences, then build these insights into a design.

• Ability to test across multiple devices, including tablet, mobile, or desktop
• User-friendly test builder that requires no coding
• Easy-to-add surveys that collect psychographic and demographic data
• Provides useful metrics like time on task, task completion rates, and NPS
• Mapping of customer journeys during a test period

Free Trial: Yes, a 14-day trial is available here .

Ongoing Subscription: All plans come with the option to pay monthly or annually. Prices range from $199-$599 per month.

#11 Best research tool for measuring customer experience: Temper

Most-loved feature: Rating stream

See real-time feedback as customers respond to questions via website or email channels. The stream provides a detailed view of ratings, comments, locations, referrers, email addresses, and more.

Temper allows any company to find out how customers feel about their product at all times. It directly provides first-party data to a business, preventing the need to design and distribute complex surveys. It can be placed as a widget on the site or in emails, and questions are asked to gain real-time feedback from visitors and customers alike.

• Easily deploy questions across website and email channels
• Quickly spot poor experiences to identify problematic areas of a business or product
• The rating graph gives you a real-time view of results for any question asked
• Public rating wall shows how you’re performing, instilling confidence and trust
• Ratings come with open text fields to give additional context to responses
• Referrer data gives you the ability to segment feedback and relative performance
• Tracking variables let you send data with ratings, such as order numbers, user IDs, etc.
• User targeting lets you determine who sees questions and how often they see them

Freemium Version: There is no freemium version. However, their hobby plan gives you a slimmed-down version of the product and costs $12 per month.

Ongoing Subscription: Four plans are available, ranging from hobbyist to enterprise. The lowest pricing tier starts at $12 monthly, and their top-tier solution costs $199 monthly. All plans are pay-monthly, with a 60-day money-back guarantee.

#12 Best online market research tool for focus groups: Remesh

Most-loved feature: Common topics

In just a few clicks, you can view the themes and topics that are most common with your focus group across an entire session. It groups similar responses, specific phrases, and interesting responses in seconds.

Remesh facilitates live, qualitative conversations with focus groups of up to 1000 people at a time. Replicating the focus group format online delivers powerful segmentation and dynamic capabilities that speed up your time to insight and let you hold a real-time conversation at scale.

• Launch a live conversation with up to 1000 people at a time
• Organize and analyze responses in an instant
• Segment your audience based on demographic and response data
• Share visuals and text-based content with the group to get instant feedback
• The algorithm analyzes open-ended responses in real-time

Freemium Version: No

Free Trial: Yes. However, you must first book a demo with a member of their team.

Ongoing Subscription: Remesh provides custom pricing plans that can only be obtained once you’ve taken a demonstration of their platform with a member of their team.

#13 Top collaboration and documentation tool for market research: BIT.AI

Most-loved feature: Content library + smart search

While it sounds quite basic; in essence, this tool for market research professionals makes it quicker and easier to keep track, share, and store key data. Forget trawling through emails, slack, and g-docs to find files; the smart search feature helps you locate files in an instant.

A dynamic platform that helps researchers collaborate, track, share, and manage research data in a single place. This is one of the best online market research tools for those who need a place to bring together resources like websites, PDFs, articles, images, infographics, blogs, reports, videos, etc. it’s low-cost and connects to some of the most widely used tools. Being able to share multidimensional data with others, or simply keeping track of secondary market research in a single place makes it a firm favorite.

• Over 100 integrations with applications like Tableau, Miro, G-docs, Onedrive, and more
• Real-time editing and live collaboration
• Content Library
• Smart search
• Supports a huge range of content and file types

Freemium Version: Yes. Available for teams of up to 5 collaborators.

Free Trial: Yes, a free trial is available here .

Ongoing Subscription: A range of packages are available, costing between $8-$20 monthly.

Best market research tools for startups

There is another often-forgotten set of tools used for market research that are ideal for startups. If you’ve got zero budget and a little time on your hands, you can do most types of desk research for free. Sources include:

• Company reports, case studies, and whitepapers
• Research and trade associations
• Media coverage
• Internal sales or usage reports
• Academic or scientific journals
• Government and non-government agencies
• Public library records
• Competitor websites
• Educational institutions

Helpful: Check out this article about how to do market research for a startup .

Wrapping up….

With cost and time key considerations for anyone looking at tools for market research, it’s vital to choose wisely. While free market research tools are all good and well, they won’t always serve you when you’re on a deadline or require key insights on a specific competitor, market, or product.

Similarweb helps companies win in the digital world. Whatever the market, goal, or business size, its solutions are designed to help organizations understand their market and compete and beat rivals.

Take it for a test run today. Trial any Similarweb solution free for the first 7-days using this link .

Need to know more about the ROI of Similarweb? 

What are the best market research tools for secondary research?

The internet is probably the best tool for market research there is. It’s a goldmine of secondary market research data. But beware of data validity and check your information is coming from a trusted source.

What are the best market research tools for surveys?

Survey monkey is considered the best online market research tool for surveys, but key players like Typeform and Zoho follow closely behind. Budget and features usually determine the right tool for your needs.

What are the best free market research tools?

The best free tools for market research include: Answer the Public, Think with Google, Similarweb lite, SurveyMonkey’s basic plan, and Hootsuite’s free plan.

What are the best market research tools for qualitative research?

Qualitative research includes things like focus groups, open-ended surveys, case studies, and observation research. As such, the best tool for online research like this would be something like BIT.ai’s documentation and collaboration tool. Another useful tool for qualitative market research would be an online survey provider, like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or Google Forms.

What are the best market research tools for quantitative research?

As this type of research is focused more on numbers, the best quantitative market research tools include things like Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence and Tableau. Each performs a different function but works together to collect, analyze, and present data in the most useful way possible.

by Liz March

Digital Research Specialist

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Top 16 Digital Tools That Every Researcher Should Know About

Using digital tools for researchers effectively can be the difference between an average and an excellent piece of research. But today, with the long list of research tools available online, it is only natural for busy researchers to be baffled when it comes to making the right choice for specific needs. With considerations of time, cost, effectiveness and quality, there is a lot to check before you make the choice. We don’t want you to spend hours just looking for the best tools for researchers, so we’ve rounded up some of the most effective digital tools for researchers to make your life simpler.

In this comprehensive article, we have compiled a list of 16 useful online tools for researchers at various stages of the research journey. These tools will streamline your research process, help you stay organized, and provide you with easy access to the information you need. From reference management software to digital libraries, these cutting-edge tools cater to the needs of both experienced and novice researchers alike. Whether you’re working on a major research project or just starting out, this blog will help you get ahead of the curve and make your research journey a tad (we aren’t making big promises) bit easier.

Table of Contents

Why are digital tools for researchers important

Before any digital tools for researchers were introduced, academics had to rely on old-school manual methods that were typically time-consuming, labor-intensive, and also limited in scope. For instance, you had to subscribe to journals or physically visit libraries and spend hours searching and sifting through tomes before finding the most relevant information. And once that was done, the process of organizing, storing, and referencing data was another challenge you had to overcome.

In contrast, online tools for researchers offer a wealth of information and resources at your fingertips today. With the option to search and access vast amounts of knowledge with a few clicks, researchers are able to boost their efficiency and effectiveness at work.

And it’s not just limited to online tools for researchers that allow you to easily store, organize, and manage information, there are a number of tools that can help you hone your writing, check for plagiarism, find the right journal, collaborate with other researchers, and share your knowledge, ideas, and resources. The rapid development of digital tools for researchers have revolutionized the way researchers work, making way for faster innovation and more groundbreaking research.

Types of tools for researchers

There are various types of online tools for researchers to choose from. These tools can be classified into various categories such as planning and management of research projects, literature search, data collection and analysis, reference management, editing and paraphrasing, and collaboration and communication. These digital tools for researchers have revolutionized the way academics work, adding to their time, productivity and effectiveness; this in turn makes research more accessible, efficient, and collaborative. Let’s take a look at some top tools for researchers across these key stages in the researcher journey.

Reference Management Tools

Reference management tools are great time saving tools for researchers. Not only do they allow you to create a library of relevant articles, they help you format your references, detect duplicate entries and replace incomplete references, and even share articles with other researchers. Furthermore, they are also extremely useful tools for researchers when it comes to correctly linking sources and citing referenced articles.

Among the top reference management tools for researchers, Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote are the most widely used.

Zotero has quickly become one of the must-have tools for researchers to capture and preserve high-quality publication data from various sources, including journal articles, websites, newspapers, and PDFs. Its integration with popular Word processors such as Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs allows you to efficiently manage citations and bibliographies as you write. The software’s built-in PDF reader enables you to identify and extract cited quotations and comments, which can be directly saved as notes. What sets Zotero apart is its advanced search feature, which enables users to perform complex searches, such as locating articles added in the last month by mentioning a specific keyword and creating auto-updating collections. Zotero can also identify retracted papers and sends out an alert when you attempt to cite a retracted paper.

Zotero follows the freemium model, where one can get 300 MB in the free version with additional storage available for a fee starting at $20/year .

An offering by Elsevier, Mendeley is among the best reference management tools for researchers that combines an intuitive, user-friendly interface with powerful organizational features. With Mendeley, you can store and manage sources, take notes, collaborate with others, and discover new research in your field. Mendeley’s PDF viewer has an excellent, easy-to-use, built-in capability with the option of editing a document simultaneously with other Mendeley users. ‘Mendeley Notebook’, a feature of Mendeley, helps you collate all your highlights and notes from multiple PDFs. ‘Mendeley Cite’, another of its features, is a citation plugin for Microsoft Word that lets you insert references and bibliographies into your document.

Mendeley is a free citation and paper management tool with up to 2 GB of cloud storage. It has a desktop application, mobile app, and Chrome browser extension, making it a top choice among tools for researchers.

Mendeley offers both a free and a premium version, where users get 2 GB in the free version and additional storage space with pricing starting at $55/year .

Endnote is one of the paid reference management tools for researchers. It allows researchers to insert citations into the text, and simultaneously creates a bibliography with its “Cite While You Write” feature in Microsoft Word. Additionally, one can align and format the article as per the target journal requirements using its “Manuscript Matcher” feature. You can also conduct large-scale literature reviews with Endnote’s powerful analysis tools. Endnote is available in the cloud and accessible anywhere, providing researchers with the flexibility to work from any location.

Endnote offers a range of pricing options, starting at $124.95/year . It is one of the must-have tools for researchers keen on saving time and energy!

Academic Writing Tools

If you are not taking advantage of academic writing tools for researchers, well, you’re missing out on a lot. The range of things academic writing tools can do for you is astonishing – language editing, abstract writing, plagiarism checking and so much more! While there are a number of online tools for reseachers that can help improve your academic writing, here are our top choices in this category that you should know about.

iThenticate

iThenticate by Turnitin is an online plagiarism checker designed specifically for researchers and academics to review their manuscripts prior to journal submission and publication. iThenticate is one of the most popular tools for researchers looking to check their writing for originality and ensure they have cited all sources appropriately.

With its advanced plagiarism detection technology, iThenticate compares a submission to an extensive database of web pages and scholarly content before producing a similarity score and report. Researchers can use this report to eliminate any inadvertent instances of plagiarism and other blunders in their research papers.

The price for an iThenticate license starts at $100 for a manuscript and is valid for multiple plagiarism checks for this single document over a year. If you need to check more than one manuscript, you can opt for an annual license at a higher price.

One of the well-known tools for researchers, Scholarcy is an innovative AI engine that helps you analyze different sections of an article, filter out the noise, and deliver a precise structured summary of the research. Scholarcy doesn’t just condense papers into referenced lay summaries, it highlights key claims and statistics mentioned in the research paper that are most useful to your work.

It also extracts all the tables and figures and links to their cited location in the text, saving researchers hours of time searching for the most relevant papers. The smart AI engine is also a great tool for researchers looking to generate lay summaries that can help promote their research to a broader audience

You can use the free Scholarcy browser extension on Chrome or Edge to create summary flashcards online or build your own personal interactive library with a subscription of $7.99 per month.

Scrivener is among the underrated tools for researchers that can help make researchers’ lives simpler if used effectively. It has a user-friendly interface that allows researchers to easily organize their research notes, documents, and outlines. Scrivener gives you three ways to organize your projects: the Binder – which lets you manage folders and text, the Outliner – which helps you outline your research before you write it, and the Corkboard – to help you plan and organize your ongoing tasks.

Scrivener also has a mobile app that syncs with your devices ensuring everything is in one place. This makes it a great option for those who want to walk around and research ideas or take notes on your phone.

Scrivener offers a free trial period, with lifetime licenses available from $63.56 for MacOS and Windows.

Paperpal is as multifaceted as a Swiss Knife and stands tall among online academic writing tools for researchers. With in-depth language and grammar checks, instant and precise academic translations, relevant subject-specific writing recommendations, and critical technical checks, its suite of tools has you covered from the first draft itself. Use the Paperpal for Word plug-in and improve your language as you write in Microsoft Word, including real-time suggestions on vocabulary and phrasing.

Turn to Paperpal for Web to enhance your content with instant checks to ensure error-free language and grammar, clarity, and readability. Choose Paperpal for Manuscript if you have a manuscript ready for submission; its comprehensive language and technical checks ensure your work meets journal guidelines by flagging problem areas that could lead to desk rejection.

The best part about Paperpal, also something that makes it different from other more generic grammar editing tools, is that it is tailored for researchers and academic writing. You can get up to 500 edits for free on Paperpal for Word and Web or enjoy unlimited support at just $99 per year. Paperpal for Manuscript gives you an edited version of your article with suggestions in track changes for just $29.

Project Management Tools

There are several online tools for researchers to manage and organize their work, including keeping track of task completion, setting deadlines, and just having everything in one place. Four tools for researchers that must be there in your productivity kit are Trello, GanttPRO, Evernote, and My Research Projects.

You can use Trello to visually organize your ideas on its boards with the help of interactive cards. These cards can be used in multiple ways – you can create lists, assign tasks, message and tag those you are collaborating with, link files, add due dates–all on the virtual “back” of the card. You can also drag cards between lists, copy cards that you use often (or rather, use the cards as templates), and send cards to other boards. Basically, you can see your entire research process on a single Trello board.

This is a useful tool for researchers involved in large collaborative projects that span the globe. Trello has a free version that offers limited features with pricing models starting at $5 a month.

GanttPRO is another tool for researchers that helps you organize your thoughts better. A Gantt chart timeline on GanttPRO is the best way to visualize tasks, know their start and end dates, and track your progress along the way. The vertical and horizontal axes in a Gantt Chart present a visual summary of how various aspects of your research project are progressing, which allows you to address specific tasks that need extra or immediate attention.

GanttPRO is hosted in the cloud, which makes is easily accessible. It offers users a free trial with the option to choose from plans starting at $7.99 per month.

A productive way to jot down notes and ideas and sort through your research materials, Evernote is one of the most popular online tools for researchers. With Evernote, you can organize your research by a simple notebook structure to keep similar notes together or creating tags and folders for specific purposes.

You can save webpages, articles, or screenshots to your Evernote notebook and use the handy multimedia feature to enhance these by adding new text, images, documents, and even audio messages captured with its inbuilt recorder. Evernote also helps you sync your notes across devices so you can manage your notes across multiple platforms.

The basic version of Evernote lets you create and save notes but has limitations on storage space. You can buy more storage by opting for a paid subscription plan, which is currently available from $5.83 a month at ongoing discounted prices.

My Research Projects

My Research Projects by Researcher.Life is designed for researchers and helps you plan, manage, and communicate your work effectively. It promises end-to-end support in transforming your research into a well-written manuscript with suggestions on suitable journals for your research and guidance on the most relevant literature to cite. You can use the comprehensive submission readiness check to ensure your manuscript meets journal guidelines, with checks for language quality, structural completeness, clarity and consistency, and mandatory declarations. You can also generate detailed article summaries to help you convey your research findings more effectively.

My Research Projects lets you check one manuscript and get a detailed report for free by subscribing to Researcher.Life. You can unlock premium checks for multiple manuscripts by upgrading to the Prime Pack for $99 a year.

Academic Search Engines

As researchers you are expected to keep up with the latest developments in your own and related research fields. Yet, with the exponential growth in research output, this is far from easy. This is what makes academic search engines invaluable to academics searching for relevant scientific information. They use keywords to help researchers find, access and read about the latest most relevant research, including peer-reviewed articles, genuine information, author home pages, and university websites.

Google Scholar, R Discovery, and Scopus are our top tools for researchers in this category.

R Discovery

R Discovery is a strong contender when it comes to the best literature search and reading tools for researchers. An AI-powered app for researchers, R Discovery boasts of an expanding library of research content that includes over 100 million research papers across 9.5 million topics and more than 32,000 journals worldwide. It uses your topics of interest to create a personalized reading feed, with suggestions on top reads, smart summaries, and other features to help you discover the right research in minutes.

This includes open access articles, preprints, and pay-walled content (accessible through institutional credentials) across all major subject areas, including biology, medicine, philosophy, political science, environmental science, social sciences, and psychology. The best part is that this app for researchers continually upgrades its features and eliminated predatory journals to ensure you have access to reliable research that works for you.

R Discovery is one of the many tools for researchers developed by Researcher.Life and is completely free to install and use. It is available on both mobile and web, allowing for streamlined reading on your preferred device.

Google Scholar

If you’re an academic, you probably have used Google Scholar sometime in your research journey. It is one of the most used tools for researchers and acts as an online search engine for academics looking for scholarly literature and relevant sources to cite. It is tailored for academics, which means you can use different keywords to look up various research articles, theses, books, and conference papers to support your research study.

Researchers can also search for authors, journals, and other titles and can even create an account to save their search results. The one drawback here though is that you will need to keep searching until you find related research, and even then you will still need to browse through these individually to find the most relevant content for your research topic.

Another popular academic search tool for researchers is Scopus, an offering by Elsevier that is very similar to Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic. The largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed research with over 1.7 billion cited references, Scopus houses content indexed from more than 25,000 active titles and 7,000 publishers, all carefully vetted and selected by an independent review board.

With Scopus, you can look for articles, journals, and any other sources that will help you write better research. You can also refine your literature search by filtering for author name or affiliation among others. Scopus also has analytical tools to help you visualize and compare research data – that is, you can view author, journal, and article impact metrics through the detailed research output and trends reports that Scopus provides.

Scopus works as an API that can be integrated into an institution’s repository or research information management systems. While it is free to use for non-subscribers, there is limited access to content with additional costs to access paywalled articles on this platform.

Journal Selection Tools

Given the enormous number of scholarly journals around and new ones coming up every year, it can be hard to select the best journal for your research paper. Despite its challenges, the process of finding the perfect journal, which is respected, relevant, and reliable, is one of the most critical tasks to get right for researchers. This is why good online journal finders are invaluable tools for researchers.

Elsevier’s Journal Finder tool and the Global Journal Database (GJD) are two pretty effective journal selection tools for researchers.

Journal Finder

The Journal Finder tool by Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of peer-reviewed journals across disciplines, is a great solution for authors looking to shortlist journals for their work. Just use relevant keywords, titles, or your research paper abstract to get a list of recommended Elsevier journals that publish research similar to yours.

Its intelligent machine learning algorithm uses terms specific to the corresponding research field to generate the best matches for your article. You can choose from the top of the list or sort this further using filters based on your preferences. The Journal Finder also lists journals with open-access publishing options and those that cover multidisciplinary research fields.

Elsevier can be used for free to search for journals related to your research.

Global Journal Database

The Global Journal Database, developed by Researcher.Life, comprises of more than 43,000 journals indexed in reputed public directories like Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scopus, and Web of Science. Researchers can search for relevant journals using the title or ISSN, similar topics, research paper abstracts, and even manuscripts; the advanced AI engine will use this to generate the best journals for you.

Each journal recommendation comes with a detailed journal report that has key information about shortlisted journals, including publisher details, journal metrics, author instructions, the editorial review process, and even a list of the latest articles published. With the Global Journal Database, you can see where your preferred journal is indexed and browse its publishing history to better understand its scope. The broad journal coverage, multiple search modes, and detailed journal reports make this an exceptional tool for researchers, simplifying and speeding up the often-daunting journal selection process.

The Global Journal Database is available free with a Researcher.Life Essentials Pack subscription.

Wrapping Up

Researchers everywhere are on a quest to uncover new insights and come up with ground-breaking research. Choosing the right digital tools for researcher and using these effectively can make your journey from brainstorming to breakthroughs a smoother, easier, and faster one.

If you’re looking for a seamless transition between various tools, choose Researcher.Life, which brings together innovative solutions to accelerate and optimize each stage of your research journey. Turn to Paperpal the next time you’re perplexed by language nuances, swipe through R Discovery’s reading recommendations to keep up with the latest developments, manage your research effectively with My Research Projects, or find the right journal for your paper with the Global Journal Database. Experience Researcher.Life and its many bespoke tools for researchers.

Editage All Access is a subscription-based platform that unifies the best AI tools and services designed to speed up, simplify, and streamline every step of a researcher’s journey. The Editage All Access Pack is a one-of-a-kind subscription that unlocks full access to an AI writing assistant, literature recommender, journal finder, scientific illustration tool, and exclusive discounts on professional publication services from Editage.  

Based on 22+ years of experience in academia, Editage All Access empowers researchers to put their best research forward and move closer to success. Explore our top AI Tools pack, AI Tools + Publication Services pack, or Build Your Own Plan. Find everything a researcher needs to succeed, all in one place –  Get All Access now starting at just $14 a month !    

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Office of Science Policy

Artificial Intelligence

NIH promotes the safe and responsible use of AI in biomedical research through programs that support the development and use of algorithms and models for research, contribute to AI-ready datasets that accelerate discovery, and encourage multi-disciplinary partnerships that drive transparency, privacy, and equity.

Artificial Intelligence in Research: Policy Considerations and Guidance

Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are spurring tremendous progress in medical research to enhance human health and longevity. To that end, NIH has a robust system of policies and practices that guide stakeholders across the biomedical and behavioral research ecosystem. While AI may not be explicitly mentioned, NIH’s policy framework is designed to responsibly guide and govern advancing science and emerging technologies, including development and use of AI technologies in research.

The policies, best practices, and regulations listed below reflect this framework and should be considered before, during, and after development and use of AI in research. This is not an exhaustive list of all policies and requirements that may apply to any NIH-supported research project but can serve as a guide for the research community.

Please note: Unauthorized data disclosures violate several of the policies listed below. Investigators should be cognizant that research data used as input or training for AI could result in their unintentional disclosure if the data is sent to an AI provider external to NIH.

Research Participant Protections

The following establish expectations and best practices for protecting the welfare, privacy, and autonomy of research participants. The ethical considerations embedded in these policies, regulations, and best practices (e.g., privacy) address key issues relevant to the development and use of AI in research. In adhering to them, investigators can mitigate potential harms and inequities arising from the use and development of AI.

Protection of Human Subjects (45 CFR 46) : Outlines basic provisions for Institutional Review Boards, informed consent, and assurance of compliance for NIH-supported research involving human participants and their data, including considerations of risks & benefits.

For clinical investigations that are also regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, see:

21 CFR 50 Protection of Human Subjects 21 CFR 56 Institutional Review Boards

Certificates of Confidentiality : Prohibits the disclosure of identifiable, sensitive research information to anyone not connected to the research except when the participant consents or in a few other specific situations.

NIH Information about Protecting Privacy When Sharing Human Research Participant Data : Provides a set of principles and best practices for protecting the privacy of human research participants when sharing data in NIH-supported research. (Issued under the NIH Data Management and Sharing policy.)

NIH Informed Consent for Secondary Research with Data and Biospecimens : Provides points to consider, instructions for use, and optional sample language that is designed for informed consent documents for research studies that include plans to store and share collected data and biospecimens for future use.

Data Management and Sharing

The following seek to maximize the responsible management and sharing of scientific data while ensuring that researchers consider how the privacy, rights, and confidentiality of human research participants will be protected. Increasing the availability of data through data sharing allows for more accurate development and use of AI models. These policies help ensure that investigators remain good stewards of data used in or produced by AI models.

NIH Data Management & Sharing (DMS) Policy : Establishes the requirement to submit a DMS Plan and comply with NIH-approved plans. In addition, NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices can request additional or specific information be included within the plan to support programmatic priorities or to expand the utility of the scientific data generated from the research. Also see DMS Policy Frequently Asked Questions .

Responsible Management and Sharing of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Participant Data : Describes considerations and best practices for the responsible and respectful management and sharing of AI/AN participant data under the DMS Policy.

NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy : Promotes and facilitates responsible sharing of large-scale genomic data generated with NIH funds. Also see Genomic Data Sharing Frequently Asked Questions .

Health Information Privacy

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) helps protect the privacy and security of health data used in research, including research involving AI, thereby fostering trust in healthcare research activities.

HIPAA Privacy Rule : Establishes the conditions under which protected health information may be used or disclosed by covered entities for research purposes.

Licensing, Intellectual Property, & Technology Transfer 

The following establish guidance, expectations, and best practices related to intellectual property and software sharing. They complement NIH’s data sharing initiatives, delineate investigator rights under the SBIR and STTR programs, and provide USPTO guidance on AI-related inventions. While many are not specific to AI, the policies and programs below are relevant to investigators who have developed software and source code under NIH research grants or who intend to commercialize their NIH-supported research products, including those related to development and use of AI.

NIH Best Practices for Sharing Research Software : Best practices for sharing research software and source code in a free and open format.

NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) & Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) : Unique policies and approaches may apply in the context of NIH’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) & Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. For example, recipients may retain the rights to data generated during the performance of an SBIR or STTR award.

NIH Research Tools Policy : NIH expects funding recipients to appropriately disseminate propagate and allow open access to research tools developed with NIH funding.

US Patent and Trademark Office information about AI : Provides AI-related patent resources and important information concerning AI IP policy.

Peer Review

The following clarifies NIH’s stance on the use of generative AI tools during peer review.

NOT-OD-23-149: Informs the extramural community that the NIH prohibits NIH scientific peer reviewers from using natural language processors, large language models, or other generative AI technologies for analyzing and formulating peer review critiques for grant applications and R&D contract proposals. Also see Open Mike blog on Using AI in Peer Review Is a Breach of Confidentiality .

Biosecurity and Biosafety

The following establish and are part of a comprehensive biosecurity and biosafety oversight system. Research funded by NIH, including research using the tools and technologies enabled or informed by AI, fall under this oversight framework. While some of these policies do not explicitly address AI, they are still applicable to development and use of AI in research involving biological agents, toxins, or nucleic acid molecules if such research involves physical experiments that are covered under these policies.

United States Government Policy for Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern : Describes practices and procedures to ensure that dual use research of concern (DURC) is identified at the institutional level and risk mitigation measures are implemented as necessary for U.S. Government-funded research. DURC is “life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security.” The United States Government Policy for Institutional Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern complements the aforementioned policy and addresses institutional oversight of DURC, which includes policies, practices, and procedures to ensure DURC is identified and risk mitigation measures are implemented, where applicable.

HHS Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (HHS P3CO Framework): Guides Department of Health and Human Services funding decisions on individual proposed research that is reasonably anticipated to create, transfer, or use enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPP). ePPP research is research that “may be reasonably anticipated to create, transfer or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility and/or virulence in humans.” The HHS P3CO Framework is responsive to and in accordance with the  Recommended Policy Guidance for Departmental Development of Review Mechanisms for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight issued in 2017 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential : On May 6, 2024, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released this new policy along with associated Implementation Guidance . This will supersede the DURC and P3CO policy frameworks on May 6, 2025. It provides a unified federal oversight framework for conducting and managing certain types of federally funded life sciences research on biological agents and toxins that have the potential to pose risks to public health, agriculture, food security, economic security, or national security. The policy “encourages institutional oversight of in silico research, regardless of funding source, that could result in the development of potential dual-use computational models directly enabling the design of a [pathogen with enhanced pandemic potential] or a novel biological agent or toxin.”

NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules : Establish safety practices and containment procedures for institutions that receive NIH funding for “basic and clinical research involving recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules, including the creation and use of organisms and viruses containing recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules.”

• Use of Generative AI in Peer Review FAQs (NIH Office of Extramural Research)
• NIH Office of Data Science Strategy
• US Department of Health and Human Services Artificial Intelligence Use Cases Inventory
• Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence
• PCAST Report to the President – Supercharging Research: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Meet Global Challenges
• NIH STRIDES Initiative | NIH STRIDES

For regulatory questions related to AI, see:

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Software as a Medical Device | FDA
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) for Drug Development | FDA
• Artificial Intelligence Program: Research on AI/ML-Based Medical Devices | FDA
• Digital Health Center of Excellence | FDA

Transforming the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses.

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• Innovation Speaker Series

Placebo Workshop: Translational Research Domains and Key Questions

Date and time.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) will host a virtual workshop on the placebo effect. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together experts in neurobiology, clinical trials, and regulatory science to examine placebo effects in drug, device, and psychosocial interventions for mental health conditions.

Topics will include interpretability of placebo signals within the context of clinical trials, how to isolate active response from placebo effects, and psychosocial implications of placebo response.

The workshop will be open to the scientific community and the public at large.  

Sponsored by

The National Institute of Mental Health’s  Division of Translational Research (DTR) .

Registration

This workshop is free, but registration is required   .

If you have questions about this workshop or need reasonable accommodations, please email Doug Meinecke, Ph.D. and Erin King, Ph.D. Requests need to be made five business days before the event. 

Day 1. Thursday, July 11

12:00-12:05 p.m.

NIMH Welcome Remarks

Shelli Avenevoli, Ph.D.  NIMH staff

12:05-12:20 p.m.

Introduction and Workshop Overview

• Workshop goals
• Placebo definition
• Introduction to placebo mechanisms

Tor Wager, Ph.D.

12:20-1:10 p.m.

Historic Perspectives on Placebo in Drug Trials

• Industry and regulatory perspectives

Part 1: The Scale of the Placebo Problem , Ni Aye Khin, MD

Part 2: Strategies and Results , Michael Detke, MD, Ph.D.

1:10-1:35 p.m.

Current State of Placebo in Regulatory Trials

• Mitigation and control of placebo response in drug trials

Title TBD Tiffany Farchione, M.D., FAPA

1:35-1:50 p.m.

1:50-2:30 p.m.

Current State of Placebo in Device Trials

• Historical perspectives and current challenges

Sham in device trials: Historical perspectives and lessons learned , Sarah Hollingsworth “Holly” Lisanby, MD

Challenges and Strategies in Implementing Effective Sham Stimulation for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation Trials , Zhi-De Deng, Ph.D.

2:30-3:10 p.m.

Current State of Placebo in Psychosocial Trials

• How is placebo defined in the context of psychosocial interventions?

What is the psychosocial “placebo pill”? Transferring the Placebo Construct to  Psychosocial Trials ,   Winfried Rief, Ph.D.

A social neuroscience approach to placebo analgesia,  Lauren Atlas, Ph.D.

3:10-4:00 p.m.

Panel Discussion

• Identification of gap areas and current challenges

Moderators: Carolyn Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D. Alexander Talkovsky, Ph.D. All Day 1 and Day 2 speakers

Day 2. Friday, July 12

12:00-12:15 p.m.

Day 1 Recap and Day 2 Overview

Cristina Cusin, M.D.

12:15-1:30 p.m. (6, 20-minute talks with 5 minutes for questions each)

Measuring & Mitigating the Placebo Effect

• What are the basic mechanisms of the placebo response?
• Cross cutting commonalities in predicting placebo response
• Psychosocial and interpersonal effects

Placebo and nocebo effects: Predictive factors in laboratory settings, Luana Colloca, MD, Ph.D.

Genetics and the Placebo Response in Clinical Trials and Medicine, Kathryn Hall, Ph.D., MPH

Disentangling the physiological, psychological and neural mechanisms supporting mindfulness-based analgesia from placebo , Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D

1:30-1:40 p.m.

1:40-2:55 p.m.

Measuring & Mitigating the Placebo Effect (continued)

• Which outcomes are susceptible to placebo response?
• What are other measures of placebo response besides biological?
• Novel biological and behavioral approaches to address the placebo effect in research

2:55-3:55 p.m.

Moderators: Ted Kaptchuk, M.D. Matthew Rudorfer, M.D. All Day 1 and Day 2 speakers

3:55-4:00 p.m.

Closing Remarks

Cristina Cusin, MD

OpenAI says it’s taking a ‘deliberate approach’ to releasing tools that can detect writing from ChatGPT

OpenAI has built a tool that could potentially catch students who cheat by asking ChatGPT to write their assignments — but according to The Wall Street Journal , the company is debating whether to actually release it.

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed that the company is researching the text watermarking method described in the Journal’s story, but said it’s taking a “deliberate approach” due to “the complexities involved and its likely impact on the broader ecosystem beyond OpenAI.”

“The text watermarking method we’re developing is technically promising, but has important risks we’re weighing while we research alternatives, including susceptibility to circumvention by bad actors and the potential to disproportionately impact groups like non-English speakers,” the spokesperson said.

This would be a different approach from most previous efforts to detect AI-generated text, which have been largely ineffective . Even OpenAI itself shut down its previous AI text detector last year due to its “low rate of accuracy.”

With text watermarking, OpenAI would focus solely on detecting writing from ChatGPT, not from other companies’ models. It would do so by making small changes to how ChatGPT selects words, essentially creating an invisible watermark in the writing that could later be detected by a separate tool.

Following the publication of the Journal’s story, OpenAI also updated a May blog post about its research around detecting AI-generated content. The update says text watermarking has proven “highly accurate and even effective against localized tampering, such as paraphrasing,” but has proven “less robust against globalized tampering; like using translation systems, rewording with another generative model, or asking the model to insert a special character in between every word and then deleting that character.”

As a result, OpenAI writes that this method is “trivial to circumvention by bad actors.” OpenAI’s update also echoes the spokesperson’s point about non-English speakers, writing that text watermarking could “stigmatize use of AI as a useful writing tool for non-native English speakers.”

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How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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