Web Position Gold and Like Programs

Legalities?

[AndAgain]

So everyone knows the terms of service by Google and I am sure other engines have similar terms. My question is...how do all the companies that sell tools for automated searching google and others get away with it?

Can they not take action? Or do they reserve that right and are not? If so, why?

I know of one guy who just gets a PR0...is that all that can happen?

AndAgain

[guru5571]

why bother with web position gold or other programs. They don't do anything you can't do yourself by hand. Plus they don't help you understand a thing, unlike some of the fab threads in this forum.

[digicam]

WPG is now beyond the stone age of SEO, more akin to primeval soup - useless.

[Gimp]

If you use one of these programs you are likely to have your site banned. Google is death on automatic systems.

[pageoneresults]

If you use one of these programs you are likely to have your site banned.

Someone probably needs to let the new owner of WPG know that. WPG was purchased by WebTrends last year.

[webtrends.com...]

[harry_wales]

If you want to use automated programs like these - then you must ensure that you use one that allows the use of the Google API - and then also register with Google to get your API key. Then you can submit up to 1,000 pages a day with no penalties.

[google.com...]

[Gimp]

The people at webtrends know full well that Google bans sites that use their system. I had a site banned after I hired an SEO "expert" who used web trends. I querried Google and they specifically said that using it was against their terms of service. And their terms of service actually said it was so.

[jady]

The only use we have for WPG is the "ranking reports" which are nice for our clients. But as someone said previously, make sure you get a Google API key and keep it under 1000 queries per day. Honestly, we only use it for a handful of demanding clients and only give them reports every other month. So in total, the only use we have for WPG is maybe 12 reports per month via the "reporter". The rest of the stuff we never even looked at (nor care to).

[digicam]

Just out of interest, does anyone think that the sort of stuff like keyword density that wpg provides has much hold with google nowadays, I personally think it does not, after looking through their patent application this stuff is not mentioned.

Certainly if you put a few keywords at the top of a page, a few times, then it will not do any harm, but messing around with a program which tells you to change this here or there sounds like a pointless/dated idea as it does not represent a valid user experience.

Just my thoughts.

[BillyS]

Look in the quality guidelines here:

[google.com...]

Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

[AndAgain]

Why this got put in Google news I have no clue?

My question was not just about Google and it also has nothing to do with me using WPG.

Let's not state the obvious gentlemen...I havent touched it in longer than most have been doing seo.

My question only had to do with legalities in concerns of companies that offer tools that do automated searches.

Can google or other engines press charges and if so why not!?

Thank you,

AndAgain

[pageoneresults]

I've not used the WebTrends WPG product. Can a current user of the product confirm whether or not a Google API Key is required to query their results?

This from the WebTrends WPG section (I've trimmed out quite a few and have focused on the items that would concern me.

• Automate the process of monitoring your search engine keyword rankings across more than 200 global and regional organic search engines
  
• Submit your URLs to the search engines quickly and easily
  
• Improve your position for targeted keywords using built-in expertise which recommends ways to optimize your pages
  
• Private label the reports so that you can use your company logo on the reports
  
• Track ranking information for an unlimited number of web sites and keywords - including your competitors!
  
• No risk - We provide email and telephone support and a 30-Day money back guarantee
  

We all know that thousands run ranking reports, it is a long standing tradition in the SEO industry. It is no longer a viable selling point and I cringe anytime I hear someone use the term ranking report.

Can you imagine the newcomer to this?

"Wow, monitor my search engine rankings across more than 200 search engines? Okay, I have about 2,000 keywords to monitor and I'm going to check the first 100 SERPs. I'm also going to check the box that allows me to verify that "my URI" exists while performing those 2,000 queries to over 200 search engines (if the feature is still available).

The product still appears to be aimed at the Mom and Pop level. I'm going to guess that 90% of their users are entry level/novice web designers/marketers who are dabbling in SEO. The other 10% are die hard users from the 90s who were making a killing on the WPG affiliation. :)

The last item in the list states that there is no risk. Can I assume that the software has been approved for use by the search engines that it monitors?

[stubear]

Surely Google can't ban or penalise sites for using WPG - wouldn't that just be open to abuse and allow people to cause harm to competitors rankings by checking rival sites in such software?

[pageoneresults]

My question only had to do with legalities in concerns of companies that offer tools that do automated searches.

That is something only the search engines themselves can answer.

Many of the tools you are referring to require you to enter an API Key or some other key to access their data. If you are using that key along with the tool, everything should be fine.

I'm not too certain the search engines have the resources to chase rank checkers who do not comply with their guidelines. I've heard of blanket penalties imposed due to abuse of certain programs, WPG being one of them. I've not heard of any legal cases to date where a search engine actually enforced the guidelines from a legal perspective.

Their satisfaction comes in the fact that they can easily detect abusers of these programs and there have been many instances of users IPs being banned from accessing Google. Most of the abusers are new users who just check everything and let the program loose. It's easy to detect all those queries from static IPs running every 24 hours at the exact same time for weeks on end.

Can google or other engines press charges and if so why not!?

Sure they can. Take a gander here (this is for Google, the others have similar TOS)...

[google.com...]

Personal Use Only
The Google Services are made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. You may not use the Google Services to sell a product or service, or to increase traffic to your Web site for commercial reasons, such as advertising sales. You may not take the results from a Google search and reformat and display them, or mirror the Google home page or results pages on your Web site. You may not "meta-search" Google. If you want to make commercial use of the Google Services, you must enter into an agreement with Google to do so in advance.

No Automated Querying
You may not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system without express permission in advance from Google. Note that "sending automated queries" includes, among other things: using any software which sends queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage "ranks" on Google for various queries; "meta-searching" Google; and performing "offline" searches on Google. Please do not write to Google to request permission to "meta-search" Google for a research project, as such requests will not be granted.

[Kufu]

Google (and other engines) will ban the IP that the ranking queries are coming from, but not the site which is being queried. At least that has been my experience. We only use it for ranking reports though.

[pageoneresults]

We only use it for ranking reports though.

Have you compared those "ranking results" obtained through automated queries with those obtained through manual queries?

There have been consistent reports of the ranking reports not being accurate.

Old school stuff that really isn't worth the risk. If you are running reports for non-commercial purposes, a Google API and one of the available online tools works just as well. But, I've seen the results returned from API queries differ from manual search queries.

[Kufu]

Have you compared those "ranking results" obtained through automated queries with those obtained through manual queries?

You are right, they are not always accurate. But inaccuracy of the rankings is mostly the result of WP hitting a different datacenter than the one with the manual check happens to catch. But there are definitely instances where the results are totally off.

[minnapple]

Just a little triva.
WPG used to have a forum.
In that forum I learned about webmasterworld.com
Where ever you are Susan, we miss you ;)