SEOMoz rocks, but is it breaking Google's webmaster guidelines when it comes to check rankings?
-
Hi all,
The Google's webmaster guideline in question reads...
"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."
So, when WebPosition Gold is not recommended then how come SEOMoz is acceptable to check ranks for websites belonging to SEOMoz PRO?
Do Google neglects breaking of few guidelines by good boys?
Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks a million Rand.
What bigger value a beginner member get from SEOMoz than getting personal replies from the CEO of SEO Moz.
Thank you so much. I'll take your all advices.
Best Regards, Vinod
-
Hi Vinod - looked through the other thread. I'd say the advice you got there was really solid. The content of that site is not very unique or valuable, the linking tactics you used were partially spammy, partially just low quality (directories, article links in syndicated directories, etc), and the effort put into the site overall feels subpar.
SEO in fields like pharmaceutical can be incredibly spammy and manipulative, thus looking at the top ranking folks (who usually only last a few days to a few weeks) is actually a terrible idea. Unlike in other spaces, overwhelming quantities of spam links and other manipulative tactics reign and Google appears uninterested in regulating this like they do in other markets. If it were me, I'd try to be one of the few legitimate, non-black-hat sites there, but I recognize that the spammers are likely to keep ranking with the churn-and-burn strategy, so it's up to you.
I do like your idea of starting over with a different type of site - perhaps a topic you're very passionate about that's less spammy?
Cheers,
Rand
-
Thanks everybody. Thanks a lot.
I am quite satisfied with Rand's reply. SEOMoz is awesome.
Best Regards, Vinod
-
Hi Rand,
I never expected to get answer directly from you. This is more than a surprise and kind of awesome feeling. Thanks a million.
Just to let you know.. I got answer to my this question when I was lying in bed. And something you said here. Sometimes we forget small things when we attempt to think something bigger and serious.
Actually I am damn frustrated with failure of my website. Please see my other question at http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-my-website-is-thrown-out-of-ranks-again-and-again
Hope you can figure out something for me. The main problems I have concluded so far about this website are:
(1) domain name... seems an attempt to take advantage in SERPs,
(2) Seems over-optimized
(3) Though i have attempted to write something valuable to users.. but seems failed in that. Just some extra wikipedia & 1-2 more site searches about topic and wrote on my website. I mean... my site is not providing some good amount of extra value to users.
(4) Might be small site, and more affiliate links.
Can you please have a look and show me that right direction. At this moment.. I am planning to get rid of this website and domain, and launch another website with some better mission.
Your little time on my issue will be much appreciated.
Thanks a million once again, Rand. You and your company are awesome. I am your big fan.
Best Regards, Vinod
-
Hi Vinod - we use APIs for some things (e.g. AdWords data, social shares, some rankings stuff, etc), and direct crawling for others (e.g. Linkscape itself obviously, fetching weekly site crawls, etc). I believe Google's violations primarily apply to software one installs on one's own machine that runs automated queries. We don't do that (as there's nothing to download and install with Moz). I believe this is what got WebPosition called-out on Google's site.
We're in relatively good touch with folks at lots of the major services we use - Google, Twitter, Facebook, Bing, etc. Googlers have asked us to make some changes and we've obliged (e.g. removing PageRank scores from our Mozbar/PRO app).
Hope that helps!
-
I know Google used to have an API for stuff like this, but that's not been available for a few years now. Perhaps they're still allowing people who had access previously to get into the data?
-
Hi Vinod,
I believe SEOmoz uses the Google API to power tools that utilize Google data.
If you would like more specific information about how the SEOmoz Ranking tool works, you can email the Help Team direct (help at seomoz.org) and I'm sure they will be able to help you out.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
I am sure SEOMoz is using Google API to pull the data rather then essentially scraping Google that tools like WebPosition Gold do. I remember the days when people used to love WebPosition Gold...the industry has changed so much since then.....isn't it.
-
Its breaking guidelines but not in order to manipulate a sites rankings. I think this sort of thing might have less of a priority for Google. it's something they can't really control because there will always be ways around this.
Interested to hear an official SEOmoz response to this one though
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is pagerank still a ranking factor for Google?
Hello Friends, Just want to confirm that the announcement by Google officials for no more pagerank update (Oct 14) is only for the Google toolbar update but pagerank still exists and still a ranking factor for Google? http://searchengineland.com/google-toolbar-pagerank-finally-officially-dead-205277 Please help. Regards
Moz Pro | | chakraseo0 -
SeoMoz Directory List ?? where is it
Hi there i must be missing something,, i have been looking for the list and cant find it ? where do i go to see it ? I am a pro member but all i can find is posts talking about the directory list.. Where is it ?
Moz Pro | | 365ToursSafaris0 -
How Can I View Last Week's Page Grading?
How can I see all my on-page grading reports for page grading optimization that decreased for the worse from last week - so as to know which pages to fix? My mozpro email report indicates only ten of them decreased from Grad B to C etc from last week. As I have just migrated to a new cms, I need to find and bring back to grade all effected pages. I can't find how to view historical page grades - just for last weeks. Any ideas anyone? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | emerald0 -
SEOMOZ can we trust you?
I was thinking today what are the chances that SEOMOZ can look into my campaigns and see what keywords I am targeting, strategies etc. and then sell that information to others? There has to be some type of clause when you sign up correct? But who knows because I'm not sure. Having Rand and Matt Curts talking via twitter to each other kind of concerns me. Not that I'm worried that Google will know my strategies because we don't do any black-hat linking and anything shady but how much power does SEOMOZ really have and can they leak any information to other companies or Google? Scary stuff that's why I don't put all my eggs into one basket, I spread them out. Thoughts? Thanks in advance - Brett Shaffer
Moz Pro | | EmpireSEO1 -
SEOMOZ stopped counting local results as a rank?
I had a terrifying experience today upon receiving my weekly rankings report that stated I had dropped out of google for the majority of my keywords! However upon further inspection it would appear the report is not including local results in the ranking (my page shows up #1 but is a local result). This didn't happen before, did something change that I didn't know about?
Moz Pro | | r1200gsa0 -
Rankings csv export doesn't show local rank
Is there a way to enable this in the settings somewhere? or is this simply not an available feature yet? Would be really great if there was an extra column in the report that shows local rank, as 93 of our top 100 keywords we track are all blended search results and a lot of the time this shows really inaccurate results because of this.
Moz Pro | | adriandg0 -
Alexa Ranking Sites
I found these two sites giving my competitor link juice: http://www.webnamelist.com/alexa/Alexa_186.html http://www.list-of-domains.org/alexa/Alexa_185.html I have seen these sites before and I just dont get why they are authoritative. The funny thing is I did a search for my competitors link on the page and its not showing up, is this a problem in site explorer? Why is site explorer mentioning these sites as my competitions best links when these links do not exist on their site?
Moz Pro | | SEODinosaur0 -
On page links tool here at Seomoz
Hi Seomoz - first of all, thanks for the best SEO tools I have ever worked with (this is my first question in this forum, and also I just subscribed as a paying customer after the 30 days trial you guys offer). My question: After having worked for several weeks on getting the numbers of links in our forum on www.texaspoker.dk down, we are somewhat surprised to see that we didn't succeed in getting lower numbers. For instance, this page: http://www.texaspoker.dk/forum/aktuelle-konkurrencer/coaching-projekt-bliver-du-den-udvalgte has (that's what Seomoz seo tool tells us): 239 on page links. Can this really be true? We can't find these links, and we actuually did a lot to lower the numbers of links, for instance the forum members picture was a link before, and also there was a "go to top" link in each post in the forum. Thanks a lot.
Moz Pro | | MPO0