Forum Moderators: open
"we intend for our searches to be invoked by hand by a human, not invoked by any program"
surely you jest. no program? at all? what if i use IE and just close my eyes? is that a programmatic query? Do not dismiss this point. it is not possible to impose a rule you can not even define.
"programmatic queries use server resources that cost us money"
prove it. and if true, then provide the API for a fee comensurate with the cost.
"therefore, programs such as optilink are not welcome to query on Google"
you obviously do not know anything about optilink.
"queries from optilink are not welcome at Google, because they are triggered from a program."
re-re-peat. query(not ies) by optilink are triggered by the user's keyboard, pretty much like general purpose browsers. now if you insist that microsoft's "go" button is better than my "start" button than i can only conclude that you are abusing market power to stifle the development of new browsers. wait a minute, that sounds sorta familiar!
the analogy was drawn of a website visit being like visiting someone's house. wrong. think telephone company. does the bellsouth ToS disallow answering machines? multiple telephones? modems?
any of you kids remember when there were "ringer equiv. limits" imposed by the local phone service? do you know why there aren't any now? because bellsouth has no jurisdiction over your house -- their control ends where the wires meet the house. sounds kinda like the internet.
does this create issues and unanswered questions? of course it does, but certain questions, in particular regarding what is acceptable in an ToS, have already been answered.
And more than that, the types and extent of counter-measures that can legally be used by a company in response to a violation of a ToS, whether well-formed or not, has also been repeatedly addressed.
someone suggested here that a violation of the ToS would likely (and by implication correctly) result in banning the ip or complaining to the isp. But wouldn't it be better to just look up the person in the whois database and ban one or more of their websites? if you said yes, there might actually be a job for you in the search engine industry.
"welcome to Webmaster World!"
Oh, yes, charmed, really.
sadly though, i'm much too busy taking care of customers most of the time. But do feel free to call, I'm sure you know that Ray has my number.
Foundational is communicating with respect for fellow members, as set out in #4:
Always be respectful of other users, the system, and the moderators. We put the system online in good faith, please use it in good faith.
So let's all do that in order for everyone to remain comfortable.
A very important point relative to this discussion is set out in #12:
This forum system is not a venue for personal or private vendetta's. Keep your personal business as just that - personal. This forum is not a venue for the resolution of personal disputes with members or companies.
With all due respect to everyone, if there's any substantial disagreement on issues between parties, with any company, it needs to be taken up directly with the company, between the parties themselves, in private communication rather than here. Let's remember to show respect for the person who originally asked the question here.
From the TOS #16:
Please stay within the topic area of the forum you are posting a message in, and within any topic that another poster may have started.
We all appreciate the thoughts and ideas presented, but at this point we really need to go back and continue to address the question that the member presented in the original post in this thread.
So after a brief intermission, let's now return to the regularly scheduled programming.
I would like GG to clarify one point - how do you determine the domain to ban based on use of Optilink?
I would like to see google release some tools built around the API that would allow webmasters (not SEO's) to track some basic metrics on their site/s. This would go some way to preventing abuse by automated programs, which are released to the market without any limits to their use.
And Marcia, the topic is "what does google think about" optilink (and zeus) so i think we're pretty much on point in covering the ToS, since that seems to be what google would like us to think about when it comes to programs other than simple browsers.
I do realize that this could degenerate into a tennis match between myself and Mr. G with everyone else sitting in the stands, but if more folks like dantheman would like to stick there heads out of the fox holes _I_ promise not to shoot -- at least not to kill ;-)
alternatively, i am very available by phone and email.
They aren't going to ban you, because a perl script you wrote goes and hits google's main page along with other sites (like a web crawler).
They don't want people using programs to get data from google. One person who I know who used to do SEO (or that is what he claimed) thought he was crafty by emulating a real user agent and called me one day when roadrunner or whoever had shut off his line based off a complaint from google. He got it back on, doesn't do seo anymore (he was never good at it in the first place).
Google has some of the smartest people around. I am not a programmer, but they are and have ways of noticing these things.
Anyone that claims that a program is invisible to the search engines is kidding themselves. Maybe the PROGRAM is, but google knows PEOPLE don't make evenly spaced requests by the boatload.
Sure - google isn't probably going to go after you for a couple of queries - they get god knows how many and have bigger fish to fry. They don't want to tick off some user who is using webmastergold2100+ or whatever to check one site with 3 keywords or something. But they could if they wanted to.
If you want to see an example of what google can see - look at this page:
[aaronsw.com...]
After visiting Optilink's web site, I think it's better described as a "Link Optimizer." The initial post and title lumped it with Zeus, a link builder. Clearly, it's not.
It looks to me as if Optilink makes ONE request to an SE to collect the data it needs before performing it's analysis. Although it's technically an "automated query," it's hardly the repeated requests that an SE rankings program (for example) can generate.
I recognized some things I could be doing better in my own linking strategies simply from reading their web site, it's an interesting program...
I suspect some of Windrose's irritation in this thread stemmed from frustration due to some of us making incorrect assumptions about how the program works. Everybody knows I ain't charming but Welcome to WebmasterWorld Windrose! (It's a tradition here!) :)
Retreats CAREFULLY back into foxhole
OptiLink does no repeated queries, as it is not necessary or even useful to do so. As to "automated", the same analysis could be arranged by simply fetching the link: query using your standard browser, saving the html page that is returned, and having an OptiLink like program do the analysis from that saved page.
Is this an improvement for either user or google? I think not, so I embed the browser in OptiLink, complete with the display of the browser results.
BTW, position checking can be done similarly, and i have such a prototype running on my own desktop. Simply search google for your keyword and add "&num=100" to the location bar. Then use the "find on this page" command to locate your url. With google you would then have to count results since they don't number them, or you could build a mozilla plugin that would do the whole thing in one button press. Ooops, is that automated?
The google toolbar is but one example of SEO/webmaster addons that can be built in today's standard browsers. A multitude of specialized browsers are beginning to spring up based on the Mozilla code base. To differentiate themselves, many of these browsers provide shotcuts and special features, aka, automation.
So, when does a typing aid, a shortcut key, or a macro become "automated"? This is not a theoretical point as i know of probably a dozen products today that are everybit as automated as OptiLink. And no, do not ask me to "rat" on them ;-).
so the crux remains -- the change in this thread's name not withstanding -- because it is not "link builders" that is singled out by google, but "automated queries", a concept virtually impossible to quantify.
best regards.
Google provides a positionchecker:
[google.com...] delivers numbered results. You can set your preferences to 100 results per page. Click on 'Highlight'.
> The API is the best alternative technically,
> but has been withheld by Google.
How so? Isn't that the whole point? There are people who are passing around programs and sites using the API. Check the Google API groups forum on google to find many tools and sites offering api interfaces. Sure, the user has to have their own API key, but after that?
I would love to use the Google API instead of the standard HTML API, but I was specifically instructed that selling a program that is based on the G-API was a violation of the API ToS.
No, it doesn't make sense to me either
Maybe GoogleGuy would like to jump back in here and set this straight. If you'll note in the API ToS it says "for non-commercial use" but it really is _not_ clear what that means. To wit, does that mean the results of an API query can not be resold (already covered anyway) or does it mean (what I was told) that no commercial products may incorporate the API?
