Telescope

Web and SaaS

seo keyword research

SHOW HN2024

273points
129comments
#249of 3,515 in 2024
Top 8%of 2024 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

10 positive, 30 neutral or asking, 4 mixed, 17 critical, out of 61 comments about the project. Thread score -0.10.

Pricing: 3 for, 6 againstDesign: 3 for, 4 againstIdea: 1 for, 3 againstDocs: 1 for, 3 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clean, simple UI and pay-per-use pricing

    From 3 comments
    • This is super nice Keyword research should absolutely be a pay per use thing instead of a SaaS. So many marketers I know use Ahrefs literally for 2 days for keyword research for…
      spaceman_2020 on HN
    • this is so cool! Much simpler than all the other tools and even I know how to use it. Awesome work!
      siyabuilt on HN
    • How to understand the meaning of what I'm seeing on screen. I'm not versed into SEO but I'd like to. Your tool is very nice to use.
      JourneyJourney on HN
  • Much needed, lower-cost alternative to expensive SEO tools

    From 3 comments
    • It's a much needed tool! I saw one more project do this with a credit based system, I read in this article: https://saasgodfathers.com/article/seo-tools-without-subscription-hassle
      0xDeveloper on HN
    • Awesome. All those tools are so freaking expensive.
      amanski on HN
    • Thanks for sharing! There’s so much opportunity to build lower cost tools here. Very cool.
      iambateman on HN

Objections

  • Billing unclear: charged again on reload or paging, cache behaviour confusing

    From 4 comments
    • Seems nice but going from a keyword search to my account and back, there was another charge on the credit as if a new search was done. This was I fear the charges will rise up…
      mgiannopoulos on HN
    • This isn't clear though, because under the search it tells you the number of results, so you think you've paid for all those results, but you haven't. You've only paid for the…
      qingcharles on HN
    • It was like 30 secs the back-n-forth The same happened when the tab was left opened for a long time and chrome auto-refreshed it or something to that effect. Again, it was…
      mgiannopoulos on HN
    • it might be nice to explain somewhere how the billing works too. my first thought is "am i billed again if i go to page 2 of the results? or add a new filter?"
      willsmith72 on HN
  • Missing export, sorting, API, and backlink/site audit features

    From 3 comments
    • - No option to download as excel sheet - No option to sort by columns
      twapi on HN
    • Do you offer an API? My issue with most keyword tools is that their APIs suck, with tight limits that force you to only request data in bulk, and so on.
      tethys on HN
    • For sure you win in pricing using Telescope, but here are the things to consider: There are quite a few limits in Ahrefs's Starter plan, but on the other hand you have access to…
      kulhavy on HN
  • Pricing for rank tracking seems high for large sites

    From 2 comments
    • your pricing for kw tracking seems nonsensical to me. eg i have a site where pages rank for 1,000+ keywords it has many pages like this.. tracking for just this ONE SITE would…
      nhggfu on HN
    • From your landing: Keywords Page 450 x $0.05 Keyword Details 150 x $0.04 Your estimated bill $29 > Semrush. Save up to 71% of your current bill While using semrush, you pay 4…
      oloila on HN
  • Landing page design and logo copied from existing templates or products

    From 3 comments
    • whoever is wondering about the website home page design, it looks direct copy paste from here:…
      foragerdev on HN
    • Your logo is very similar to https://insomnia.rest/
      edweis on HN
    • Just FYI your logo is almost identical to that of Inoreader (apart from the color).
      xz18r on HN

Requests

  • Keyword export and CSV download

    From 2 comments
    • This is super cool and I would love to try it out. We use SEMrush and they are basically charging us +$1000 dollar for the basic plan, with every other feature as an add-on for…
      scientific_ass on HN
    • - No option to download as excel sheet - No option to sort by columns
      twapi on HN
  • Caching of search results

    From 2 comments
    • agreed on this, caching would be very nice. i don't care if results are even a week+ out of date
      willsmith72 on HN
    • Hi, congrats on the launch! Are searches cached locally in my account? I accidentally reload a page, it seems to run the search again and charge the (free and provided) balance.…
      j45 on HN
  • API access

    From 2 comments
    • Do you offer an API? My issue with most keyword tools is that their APIs suck, with tight limits that force you to only request data in bulk, and so on.
      tethys on HN
    • Hi - is there an API?
      mceoin on HN
  • Tagging keywords in saved lists

    From 1 comment
    • This is super cool and I would love to try it out. We use SEMrush and they are basically charging us +$1000 dollar for the basic plan, with every other feature as an add-on for…
      scientific_ass on HN
  • Guide or docs for SEO beginners

    From 2 comments
    • I'm not someone who has ever worked with SEO but I'd like to use this tool for other research purposes. Can you make a guide for someone who's entirely new to SEO but is…
      written-beyond on HN
    • I don't know that much about SEO. Are you planning on adding a blog section maybe with a few article about how someone might use a tool like this to optimise their own SEO?
      dsmurrell on HN

Questions

  • Where the keyword volume data comes from

    From 3 comments
    • Do you provide keyword popularity and is it based on Google Keyword Tool data or clickstream data?
      weinzierl on HN
    • Where do you get volume and CPC data? keyword planner API?
      bytemonitor on HN
    • I am confused. I always thought keyword tools use both: backlink data and estimated search volumes. For example ahrefs has, to the best of my knowledge, its own crawler for…
      weinzierl on HN
  • Coverage for non-English and other countries

    From 2 comments
    • Awesome!! Congrats on the value prop and landing!! Very clear. I run a marketplace in Brazil (kwara.com.br) and we happen to be focusing on SEO at the moment! What's your…
      raimille1 on HN
    • This is something I've been looking for for a while !! What about keywords for France? and in Arabic?
      abdellah123 on HN
  • Difference from Google Keyword Planner and Semrush

    From 2 comments
    • What is the difference between this and Google Keyword Planner? I am asking this as someone with minimum experience in SEO
      newbie578 on HN
    • what would it take to build a SEMRush alternative?
      vivzkestrel on HN

Alternatives named

  • Ahrefs

    From 2 comments
    • For OP: Would you say this is a drop-in replacement from ahref's lite plan ? What would I miss from ahref ?
      maxencecornet on HN
    • This is super nice Keyword research should absolutely be a pay per use thing instead of a SaaS. So many marketers I know use Ahrefs literally for 2 days for keyword research for…
      spaceman_2020 on HN
  • SEMrush

    From 2 comments
    • This is super cool and I would love to try it out. We use SEMrush and they are basically charging us +$1000 dollar for the basic plan, with every other feature as an add-on for…
      scientific_ass on HN
    • From your landing: Keywords Page 450 x $0.05 Keyword Details 150 x $0.04 Your estimated bill $29 > Semrush. Save up to 71% of your current bill While using semrush, you pay 4…
      oloila on HN
  • Ubersuggest

    From 1 comment
    • What I learned recently was that all the SEO tool basically query the same back end provider. So I guess it makes sense that there is innovation on the pricing model side of…
      baxtr on HN
  • Google Keyword Planner

    From 2 comments
    • What is the difference between this and Google Keyword Planner? I am asking this as someone with minimum experience in SEO
      newbie578 on HN
    • Could you enlighten us what is new here? Your marketing is quite misleading. The value of Ahrefs and SemRush is not in the research but in the representation the clickstream data…
      kundi on HN
  • Nightwatch.io

    From 1 comment
    • Could you enlighten us what is new here? Your marketing is quite misleading. The value of Ahrefs and SemRush is not in the research but in the representation the clickstream data…
      kundi on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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