# SEO Bandwagon vs Keyword Surfer

Comparison, checked August 26, 2026.

These two tools do different jobs, and the row-by-row table above flatters us for a reason that is not to our credit: it is a table of page-inspection features, and Keyword Surfer is not a page inspector. It is a keyword-volume and SERP-data overlay, and at that job it does things ours cannot do at all — search volume, CPC, estimated traffic and competitor word counts on every result, in 70 countries, keyword suggestions with a SERP-overlap similarity score, CSV export, free and with no account. If your question is "what should I write about and who already ranks for it", install theirs. If your question is "is this page any good and what would I fix first", install ours. They sit at opposite ends of the same workflow and a lot of people run both.

Written by SEO Bandwagon, who make one of the two extensions on this page. Keyword Surfer's advantages are listed before ours, and every row in the table below is checkable against their own Chrome Web Store listing.

- Install ours free: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/seo-bandwagon/dphmaddiedhkejfhabkfdenfphjljioj
- See theirs: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/keyword-surfer/bafijghppfhdpldihckdcadbcobikaca

## Where Keyword Surfer is stronger

Keyword Surfer is published by Surfer (surferseo.com) and, as of August 26, 2026, its Chrome Web Store listing shows 600,000 users at 4.2 out of 5, from 1K ratings. It runs on Chrome. Surfer says other Chromium browsers "should also work" but does not guarantee compatibility: "While other Chromium-based browsers like Opera, Brave, or Arc should also work, we cannot always guarantee compatibility due to updates." No Surfer-published Firefox add-on exists on addons.mozilla.org., and was last updated 28 January 2026.

- 600,000 installs at 4.2 out of 5 from 1K ratings on the Chrome Web Store, with a Featured badge and the publisher-verified line "Created by the owner of the listed website. The publisher has a good record with no history of violations." Surfer’s own product page claims more still: "Join 700,000+ daily users."
- Genuinely free with no account, which is unusual for a tool backed by a paid platform. Surfer: "It is available to anyone and requires no Surfer account!" and "It’s 100% Free. Forever."
- The data appears where the work happens: "Keyword Surfer generates fresh keyword ideas and search volumes, right from your Google search results." No second tab, no separate tool.
- Competitive SERP data per result, which page inspectors like ours do not give at all: "Essential metrics like search volume, Cost per Click, estimated traffic, word count of your competitor’s pages, exact number of keywords used."
- A SERP-overlap similarity score most free tools do not offer — each keyword suggestion carries "a similarity score that reflects the percentage of the same pages that rank for the exact keyword".
- Breadth and workflow: "Get datasets from 70 Countries", saved keyword collections, and "you can conveniently export collections as a .csv file whenever you need to."
- Actively maintained and expanding — version 6.5.1, updated 28 January 2026, with a new ChatGPT integration promoted on the listing.

## What each one does

Capabilities only: nothing here rates how well either tool does its job. 6 rows go our way, 1 goes theirs.

| Capability | SEO Bandwagon | Keyword Surfer | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Scores the page and assigns a letter grade | Yes | No | The listing enumerates what it surfaces — "search volume, CPC, keyword suggestions, related terms, visibility metrics, and on-page data" — and no page score or grade appears. Their one scoring feature scores different content: the ChatGPT Humanizer "shows you how likely your content is to be detected as human-like", on a draft in ChatGPT, and it requires a Surfer plan. |
| Lists prioritised fixes, ranked by impact | Yes | No | Not claimed on the Chrome Web Store listing, surferseo.com/keyword-surfer-extension/, or Surfer help-centre article 6679368, all checked 26 August 2026. Surfer frames the tool as research, not remediation: "The fastest way to reveal search data for your keywords." |
| Google SERP preview of the title and description | Yes | No | Not claimed on any of those three pages. The extension renders on the live Google SERP, but nothing in Surfer’s material describes previewing your own title or meta description as they would appear in search. |
| Heading structure outline | Yes | Not stated | The listing lists "on-page data" among what the extension surfaces but never enumerates what that contains, and no Surfer-published page we checked says whether headings are included. |
| Structured data / schema view | Yes | No | No mention of schema, structured data, JSON-LD or rich results on the listing, the product page, or help-centre article 6679368. |
| Core Web Vitals, measured on the page | Yes | No | No mention of Core Web Vitals, LCP, INP, CLS or page speed on any of the three Surfer pages checked. |
| Readability scoring | Yes | No | Not claimed on any of the three. The only text-quality signal in the product is the ChatGPT Humanizer’s AI-detection likelihood, on content you are drafting in ChatGPT. |
| Free, with no sign-in required to analyse | Yes | Yes | Theirs is as free as ours: "It is available to anyone and requires no Surfer account!" One feature is gated — the ChatGPT Humanizer, where "This specific feature requires an active Surfer plan." The keyword and SERP overlay itself is unconditionally free. |
| Firefox build | No | No | Neither of us ships one. No Surfer-published Firefox add-on exists on addons.mozilla.org (checked 26 August 2026); a third-party add-on named "Keyword Surfer Enhanced" by "Dimo Omo" (91 users) is unaffiliated with Surfer. |
| Published install count and rating | No | Yes | They have 600,000 installs and 1K ratings. We are new and have neither. |

## How we checked

Every row above was checked on August 26, 2026 against Keyword Surfer's own Chrome Web Store listing and its published changelog, and against our own extension in the same sitting. Install counts and ratings are whatever the Web Store displayed that day.

Products change. A comparison page that is right on the day it ships and never re-checked becomes a false claim about someone else's software, so this one carries its date in the open and gets re-verified before every publish rather than left to age.

If something here is wrong or out of date, [tell us](https://seobandwagon.com/contact) and we will fix it.

Sources: [Keyword Surfer on the Chrome Web Store](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/keyword-surfer/bafijghppfhdpldihckdcadbcobikaca) · [their landing page](https://surferseo.com/keyword-surfer-extension/) · checked August 26, 2026.

The SEO Chrome extension: https://seobandwagon.com/seo-chrome-extension

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Canonical page: https://seobandwagon.com/seo-chrome-extension/vs/keyword-surfer
Site overview for agents: https://seobandwagon.com/llms.txt · API docs: https://seobandwagon.com/docs/api