Usage of Automated tools
 

Hi Folks,

Does use of automated tools like WebCEO for checking ranking, links, etc. make negative impact on SERP?

Looking for expert 8-| comments. Thanks

no, they don't.

nothing that any person not related to your site could do isn't going to harm you.

if it did, people would just run them on/against their competitors.

All I use WebCEO for is to see how my site is optimized.

Update from Google Webmaster Guidelines
 

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.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

EZTest, I'm guessing Disgust is familiar with the TOS though it was good to post. I think the point is that the price of the software you mentioned would double if it were actually enforced. How many individuals would be sending automated queries through proxie servers directed at their competitors if it would negatively effect them?

Dilligaf, I agree with you. Reasoning sounds logical :) Thanks.

It is true that you are not supposed to use any automated program to query google. You will alos notice that they single out WPG in their statement.

WPG started the problem, and understanding how that happened can give you an idea what google does not like, and therefore you can base your actions on that.

WPG has a tool that would allow you to enter an unlimited number of keywords, for (depending on the version) an unlimited number of domains. You could then schedule WPG to query google for each keyword, for each domain, to find your ranking.

If you were #999 for the 100 different keywords you were tracking for that domain, then no problem, WPG would keep getting the results (10 @ a time) until it found you, or reached the limit you set. It also did not start out with any time to wait before requesting pages and really slammed the SE's.

Many/most people set it to run every day, because it would send an email to themselves, and/or each of their clients with that days serps for each keyword on every domain.

Take that times many thousands of people with the program (at one time, is was THE program for SEO) and it became an enormous strain on Google each day.

There was also an issure of banner ads which would be counted as a view in each automated search, before the PPC days. This was another major problem for several SEs.

Google started asking that this be done with a limited number of keywords/results, and only late at night to reduce load on the servers.

They eventurally banned the use altogether, although there was an understanding that if you used that part (reporter) of the program sparingly (like limiting to keyword check to the first 50 results, etc.) there would be no problem. I know people who still use the reporter today without problem.

When they did get someone abusing it, they were not able to ban or penalize the site that was benefiting from it at all. If they did, and you were competing against me, I would just run the program with your domain entered, to get you deleted, thereby getting rid of my competition.

They did block the IP address of the person using the reporter, with only really effected people with static IP's.

Many automated programs still do it, and if used responsibly, you will never have a problem. If you think about it, using an automated program to make many large queries against a SE in a short time is not any different from a Denial of Service attack from a hacker.

As I mentioned, WPD still has the reporter, but is more SE freindly. Google is against automated programs that would cause the disruption like is noted above.


P.S. WPG is still a useful tool, and I know many, many people who still use the Page Critic with very good results. For someone struggling with a page, it is worth trying the free trail, which includes google. Wow, reading above, does it look like I work for them or what? :o

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