Does playing with the toolbar mean google death?

[SlyOldDog]

I was hunting around (using google of course) and I came across a very good site which explains how to see pre and post update pagerank just by using your temporary intenet files folder.

It works too. But I have't had the balls to query my own site because Google can see that the user agent is internet explorer and not the toolbar. Google's terms of service do not prohibit non-automated searches, but I kind of feel like I'm poking around under the hood. What do you say, GoogleGuy? Is this beyond acceptable tinkering?

[Markus]

I'm not GG but I did this pretty often in the past and there haven't been any problems. Google is getting gazillions of queries for the toolbar PR files per day and I don't think that they care about a few which have the wrong user-agent. However, you can still download a local proxy like proxomitron and modify the user-agent. But I'd rather suggest you to have an entry for toolbarqueries.com in your hosts file. It's easier to check PRs this way and there are quite some posts here about how to do it. (I'll have to remember to add that toolbarqueries thing to my google dance website...)

[SlyOldDog]

Yes, you can do the host file entry but that way you can't be sure it's working. I added the line to my hosts file in Win98 and it doesn't seem to work. But then I cannot be sure becuase I didn't see many pagerank changes this month and it's too awkward to keep changing the IP in the hosts file all the time and close and open the browser to verify correct functionality.

In addition with the temporary internet files technique you can search any Google, new or old, for pagerank instantly.

By the way, do you have any idea what the first digit is when the pagerank is returned? I get something like rank_1:1:6 where 6 is the pagerank. The other digit seems nearly always to be 1 except in the case of pagerank 10 pages.

[julinho]

I changed the hosts file and it seems to work perfectly in a W2K.

[aspdesigner]

HOSTS file will work with Win98, it even works with Win95! It can be used for it's original purpose - to speed-up access to frequently-accessed web sites. It can also be used to vaporize many annoying ads, by re-directing ad display requests to your local host, like thus -

127.0.0.1 www.annoyingadserver.com

I hadn't thought about using the HOSTS file to re-direct Toolbar PageRank display, another reason I came back to this forum - all of the smart people seem to be here! ;)

If you want to use HOSTS, make sure that you use the right flename and location. I read here where one person found and edited the "HOSTS.SAM" file. That is a disabled SAMple file that comes with Windows! For Win9x, the filename should be simply "HOSTS" (no extension), and placed in the C:\WINDOWS directory.

It may be hard to see if your HOSTS files is working with PR, as the toolbar will show you a value either way. So, if you want to see if this is really working, simply place another entry in your HOSTS file that re-directs a target domain to your local host, like so -

127.0.0.1 www.test.com

(where test is whatever infrequently used web site you want to use for this purpose)

If you try to pull-up this domain in your browser and nothing comes back, then you know that your HOSTS file is working!

Or, if you REALLY want to have some fun, try this line in your HOST file instead -

66.35.250.170 www.msn.com

;)

(NOTE: some versions of Netscape will have time-out errors if you try to redirect access to your local host. If you use Netscape, you can use a free small utility called eDexter that solves this problem. You can do a Google search for it if you need it.)

[SlyOldDog]

Yes, thanks for the info. It's working fine. I take it any queries frm the toolbar will now be directed to www2, including the backwards link search?

[Markus]

IMO, if you want to control the backwards links search via the toolbar, you will need another entry in your hosts file for www.google.com.

BTW, I don't have the slightest idea what the other digits in the PR file are good for.