> methodology has all the rigor of reading chicken bones and goat entrails

SEO is supposed to be about the natural movement of the website by throwing things into the soup to make it taste better and as such move up in an organic fashion. The proof is in tracking the keywords or phrases you are hoping that will move up... I have been using AuthorityLabs.com for about a month now to track rankings and it has been working pretty well. It is a service worth paying for.