Getting the IIS SEO Toolkit up and running

We recently published a popular blog post called Get detailed site analysis to solve problems that highlights the function and capabilities of the new, beta search engine optimization (SEO) Toolkit from the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) team. The tool works as an extension to the latest version of IIS, version 7.

We’ve received some webmaster feedback with specific questions on how to set up IIS 7 before installing the IIS SEO Toolkit. So to help simplify and clarify this task for webmasters (as clearly folks are very much interested in using the tool!), we developed this quick “How-to” post with detailed instructions for the set up of IIS 7. We hope this helps!

Minimum installation requirements

The IIS SEO Toolkit will run on any version of Microsoft Windows capable of running IIS 7. This includes:

  • Windows Vista Service Pack (SP)1 and higher (only available in the Vista versions Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate)
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008 R2

The IIS SEO Toolkit, due to its reliance on IIS 7, is not supported on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or on any alternative operating system.

Note: You must be a member of either the Administrator or Web Server Administrator groups to perform this set up procedure.

Enable IIS 7

Before you can install the IIS SEO Toolkit, you first need to enable IIS 7 on your computer. In both Windows Vista and Windows 7, this will install the web server software but will not, by default, open port 80 for inbound network traffic. To set up IIS 7, follow these instructions:

1. Click Start.

2. Click Control Panel.

3. Click Programs.

4. Select Turn Windows features on or off (as shown in the figure below). If you receive a Windows Security warning, click Allow.

5. In the resulting Windows Features dialog box, select the Internet Information Services check box (as shown in the figure below).

6. Click + to expand the view to see the following nodes: World Wide Web Services, and then Application Development Features. Select the .NET Extensibility check box (as shown in the figure below).

7. Click OK. The activation of the newly installed components may take a few minutes to complete.

For more information in installing IIS 7, see the article Installing IIS 7 on Microsoft TechNet.

Install the IIS SEO Toolkit

Once IIS 7 is enabled, follow these instructions to install the IIS SEO Toolkit extension.

You’ll need to download the version of the toolkit corresponding to the type of Windows you are running (either 32-bit or 64-bit). If you are not sure what type you have installed, you can check by doing the following:

  1. Click Start.
  2. Right-click Computer, and then click Properties.
  3. In the System group, System Type will indicate whether you are running a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Windows.

To install the IIS SEO Toolkit, click the correct link below for your installed version of Windows to download the program installation file. You can choose to run the downloaded program directly or save it locally and then start it. After starting the installation of the IIS SEO Toolkit, following the instructions as prompted.

For an introduction to and information on the features of the IIS SEO Toolkit, see the Webmaster Center blog post called Get detailed site analysis to solve problems. Thanks for taking the IIS SEO Toolkit for a test spin! We think you’ll be impressed!

–Alessandro Catorcini, Lead Program Manager, Bing API & Rick DeJarnette, Bing Webmaster Center