SEO Toolbar for Internet Explorer: Why There Isn't One in 2026
Internet Explorer retired in June 2022. No SEO toolbar supports it in 2026, and Microsoft has disabled standalone IE11 across all Windows 10 versions. If you arrived here looking for an SEO toolbar that runs in IE, the practical answer is to switch to Microsoft Edge (the official IE successor) and install a modern SEO toolbar there. This page explains what happened and what to use instead.
Quick answer: There is no SEO toolbar for Internet Explorer in 2026. The browser itself is gone. Install Microsoft Edge (or Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and use the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar, SEOquake, or MozBar instead. All three are free and far more capable than any SEO toolbar that ever existed for IE.
What happened to Internet Explorer
Microsoft announced the end of Internet Explorer in May 2021 and retired the browser officially on June 15, 2022. For about eight months after that date, IE11 still launched on Windows 10 but redirected to Edge. On February 14, 2023, Microsoft pushed an update that disabled IE11 entirely across all supported Windows 10 versions; clicking the IE icon now opens Microsoft Edge. Windows 11 never shipped with IE at all.
Microsoft kept one piece of IE alive: Internet Explorer mode inside Edge, which is a compatibility shim for legacy enterprise applications that still require the Trident rendering engine. IE Mode is administered through Edge group policy and is intended for intranet line-of-business apps, not for general browsing. Critically for SEOs, IE Mode does not support modern browser extensions, so no SEO toolbar can run there.
Timeline of IE\'s end
May 2021
Microsoft announces Internet Explorer 11 will retire on June 15, 2022.
June 15, 2022
Official retirement. IE11 is no longer supported on Windows 10 consumer versions.
February 14, 2023
Microsoft update permanently disables IE11. The IE icon now opens Edge instead.
Today
IE only exists as "IE Mode" inside Edge for enterprise legacy apps. No standalone IE, no extension support.
The old SEO toolbars for Internet Explorer
Several SEO toolbars existed for IE during the early 2000s and 2010s. None are maintained today, and none would install in 2026:
SEO Toolbar for Internet Explorer by Bruce Clay (discontinued 2017). The most-installed IE SEO toolbar at its peak, with on-page analysis and link inspection. Removed from Microsoft Add-ons after IE11.
SEOmoz Toolbar for IE (became MozBar, only on Chrome/Firefox since 2014). Moz never ported the rewritten toolbar back to IE.
Google Toolbar for IE (discontinued for IE in 2012, fully retired 2021). Included a public PageRank indicator until Google killed PageRank export in 2016. Not a true SEO toolbar, but the most-installed Google-branded IE toolbar.
SEOquake for IE (only Chrome and Firefox since 2015). SEOquake had an early IE prototype that was never released as stable.
The pattern is consistent: every SEO toolbar developer dropped IE support between 2014 and 2017, well before Microsoft officially retired the browser. The reason was developer cost. IE used a different extension model (BHO, or Browser Helper Objects) that was incompatible with the WebExtensions API used by Chrome, Firefox, and modern Edge. Maintaining two completely separate codebases stopped being worthwhile once IE\'s market share dropped below 5%.
What to install instead
For the modern equivalents, pick the browser you actually use day-to-day, then install one of the major SEO toolbars:
Microsoft Edge is the official IE successor, and the natural choice if you are coming from IE. Edge runs the same extensions as Chrome (it is Chromium-based since 2020), so any SEO toolbar from the Chrome Web Store installs directly. See our SEO extensions for Edge guide.
If you want to try something different
Most SEOs use either Chrome or Firefox as their primary browser. Chrome has the largest extension catalogue. Firefox has stronger privacy defaults and full feature parity with Chrome for every major SEO toolbar. See SEO extensions for Firefox.
Avoid third-party "IE-compatible SEO toolbars" in 2026. Some sites still claim to offer SEO toolbars for Internet Explorer. These are either unmaintained legacy software that will not work on modern Windows, or repackaged adware that uses the IE branding as bait. Internet Explorer is gone; there is no legitimate active SEO toolbar for it.
For organisations still running IE Mode in Edge
Enterprise users running IE Mode in Edge for legacy line-of-business apps can still browse the modern web normally in regular Edge tabs. IE Mode and standard Edge tabs share the same Edge process, so the SEO toolbar you install in Edge works in standard tabs even when IE Mode is enabled for specific intranet URLs. This is the common setup at organisations with old Sharepoint or in-house applications: IE Mode for the legacy intranet, regular Edge for everything else, and SEO toolbars install on the regular Edge side.
Looking for the broader picture? Our SEO toolbar guide covers all four major options (Ahrefs, SEOquake, MozBar, Semrush) with a feature comparison table and browser support matrix.
No. Internet Explorer retired on June 15, 2022 and no modern SEO toolbar supports it. The last SEO toolbar that worked on IE was the SEO Toolbar for Internet Explorer by Bruce Clay, which was discontinued in 2017. Today, install Microsoft Edge (the official IE successor) and use modern SEO toolbars there: Ahrefs SEO Toolbar, SEOquake, MozBar, or Semrush SEO Toolbar.
Only inside Microsoft Edge\'s IE mode, which is a compatibility shim for legacy enterprise applications. Standalone Internet Explorer 11 was disabled by Microsoft on February 14, 2023 across all supported Windows 10 versions. For SEO work, this matters because IE Mode does not support modern browser extensions, which means no SEO toolbar will run there.
Microsoft Edge is the official successor. Edge is Chromium-based, so it runs the same extensions as Chrome, including every major SEO toolbar (Ahrefs, SEOquake, MozBar, Semrush). Most SEOs in 2026 use Edge, Chrome, or Firefox; some agencies use multiple browsers for cross-browser SERP testing.
The old Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer (discontinued 2021) included a public PageRank indicator until Google killed PageRank export in 2016. It was a general browser toolbar with a single SEO data point, not a true SEO toolbar in the modern sense. There is no official Google SEO toolbar today; for SEO data on Google search results, use third-party tools like Ahrefs SEO Toolbar.
Most SEO toolbars dropped IE support between 2014 and 2017. SEOquake removed IE support in 2015, Moz rewrote MozBar for Chrome/Firefox in 2014, and Bruce Clay discontinued its IE-specific toolbar in 2017. The shift was driven by IE\'s different extension model (BHO, or Browser Helper Objects), which was incompatible with the WebExtensions API used by Chrome and Firefox.