In the wacky world of search-engine optimization there’s no shortage of free tools: Each one competing for your time, attention, and ideally a recommendation that will help expand its audience.

While most of the SEO tools are nothing more than a rehash of an existing gadget–every once and awhile I’m pleasantly surprised.

The following are the 6 free SEO tools that have stood the test of time for me. You probably already use a couple of these. But if not, I strongly recommend adding them to your arsenal.

So here we go.

6 Free SEO Tools You Should Be Using

The Tool: Xenu Link Sleuth

Where to Get It: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

Why You Need This: As long as you don’t mind a little Scientology bashing–You’ll see what I mean when you install the tool–Xenu Link Sleuth is pretty awesome.

Xenu became popular as a really easy way to find broken links on your website. But I also use it as a way to scan the title tags of a large website all at once. This helps me identify whether or not the website is taking advantage of their title tags and discover quickly if there’s a duplicate title problem.

The Tool: SEOQuake

Where to Get It: http://www.seoquake.com/

Why You Need This: I bet most of you use this plugin already. If not, download it now and you’ll get to know why I use it so much.

SEOQuake makes it super easy to identify a ton of SEO ranking factors all at once: PageRank, Inbound Links, External Links, Keyword Density, Robots.txt, Number of Indexed pages, and an aggregate of other fun info.

Just listen to my robotic sounding friend Tyler in the video below to get a run down of all the benefits.

The Tool: SEOMoz Crawl Test

Where to Get It: http://www.seomoz.org/tools

Why You Need This: The SEOMoz Crawl Test is free to use once a day if you don’t have a Pro membership. I use this tool all the time to get a very fast idea of how many pages of a website are indexed by both major search engines (Google, Yahoo/Bing) and what the on-page SEO elements look like.

The only downfall of this product is that there is no downloadable Excel spreadsheet option which would be very helpful reporting to generate for clients. I hope this functionality will be added in future tool updates.

The Tool: Quix – “Bookmarklets on Steroids”

Where to Get It: http://quixapp.com/

Why You Need This: Here’s a tool I suspect a few of you haven’t heard of yet. It’s called Quix and it’s a tool that has a lot of flexibility to provide helpfulness outside the realm of search-engine optimization.

The nice thing about Quix is that its not really a plugin at all. All you’ve got to do is drag the Quix app up to your bookmark’s toolbar and viola, you’re harnessing the power of bookmarklets.

If you’re weird like me and prefer typing instructions into a command line DOS style, Quix is the way to go. As soon as you get the app uploaded, try typing “seothis” into the command box. I think you’ll be surprised/happy with all the data that instantly pops up.

For a more comprehensive list of Quix commands and uses, go here.

The Tool: XML Sitemaps Generator

Where to Get It: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Why You Need This: Adding an XML sitemap to a website is one of those standard, best-practice things that every SEO service delivers. This tool will create a free XML (or HTML) sitemap for up to 500 pages with just a few clicks. If you’re working on a larger site, there’s an unlimited sitemap generator available for $19.99.

The Tool Belt Site: Swiss Army Knife of SEO Tool Websites

Where to Get It: http://www.webconfs.com/, http://network-tools.com/, http://www.seobench.com/

Why You Need This: I call these websites the Swiss Army Knife of SEO tool sites because they try to be everything to everyone. You can find some hidden gems in sites like these and they really do have some useful stuff, but for me, they’re not organized for simple use.

Still, it’s a good idea to be aware of the type of tools these free sites deliver since I’ve seen a number of subscription model websites that ask you to pay for a program that can be found here for free here.

That’s all I’ve got for ya. Hopefully you’ve found at least one tool that’s both new and helpful. But what I’d really like to know is, what free SEO tools do you recommend? Leave suggestions in the comments.

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