They say that spying is the second oldest occupation in the world. Spying on the competition is very old business method and one of the ways to keep ahead in a very competitive world. It is also highly immoral and often illegal. But, since everyone is doing it, if you want to survive, you’ll have to play the game.

Spying also work the other way around. You may never know when you are being spied upon. Make sure you have all your bases covered. For instance, most people don’t even bother thinking about log files and visitor information their ISP is holding. This alone, if bought by your competition can bring ruin to your company.

The rise of Internet has made spying all too easier. If you know your way around it, there’s little you can’t find out about pretty much anybody. After some research, we have compiled a list of perfectly legal tools you can use to spy on your competitors.

Domain Tools

This use to be WhoIs. Want to know who owns particular site? This is the place to go to. You will get listing with owner’s name, address and date of expiration. This is usually the first step in spying. You can also see what other sites they have registered to the same name, thus seeing in detail your competition’s activities.

SpyFu.com

Formerly GoogSpy, this service can reveal to you which keywords your competition is using and revealing their AdSense strategy. Even though it isn’t free, it is still a very powerful tool.

Google Alerts

Wondering when your keywords, or for that matter, your competitors’ keywords, will be indexed by Google? Subscribe at Google Alerts and get an email when that happens.

Google Trends

Another Google service, it allows you to monitor latest trends on the Internet. See what competition is doing and beat them to the next hot keyword. It is updated daily with data from Google.

Google Sets

Google Sets helps you find similar keywords to the ones you are already using. In essence, you will get a list your competition is using successfully.

Alexa

Alexa offers site rankings for any site you are interested in. It also provides a statistics for demographic, incoming click and more. Useful for determining if competition is doing better than you.

Seeking Alpha Transcripts

With this site you can search the Internet for your competition’s transcripts. Usually, there’s always something useful found there.

Remember, these services are completely legal to use. Of course, there are more powerful ones you can find, but we wouldn’t recommend them.  You can easily get your self in trouble for unauthorized access to someone’s data, a crime followed by a hefty fine and often a jail time as well.