Blekko the “spam –free search engine” is often used by the SEO community to gather deeper insights into domains. Blekko has been a useful tool in obtaining SEO information such as inbound links pointing to a site, indexed pages and more.

One of the great things about Blekko was that anyone could access this information free of charge. As of August 14th, that information is no longer free to access. When attempting to perform an inbound link query today, we were prompted to sign up for a $99 monthly membership. See below.

This is unfortunate given that (to our knowledge) there has been no indication by Blekko that this will become a paid service. In fact, in their own “About SEO” section, they discuss their desire to make search more transparent, stating that they do not “believe in keeping secrets.”

We understand that great tools can come with a price, and the owners of course have every right to begin charging. However this move to a paid model could have been marketed a little better, provided advanced warning, or even added some more features to make up for the fact that they are now charging.

In a recent post, SEO Jason McDonald discussed this change and provided some good suggestions on moving to a “freemium model” instead of pay-walling the entire SEO feature.

What do you think about this move? Do you think $99 a month is a good price for the data Blekko provides, or will you go elsewhere? Share your comments below!