I really wasn’t clear on this before, but apparently Google has it in their Terms of Service that you can’t use an automated tool of any kind to check rankings…i.e., that you have to use their standard interface for any such purpose.

Personally, I think this is silly. If it’s an in-demand type of thing, they should slap a price tag on it and build an interface for it…offering it as a premium service. But apparently, they either haven’t come to that conclusion or they see too much potential for manipulation or something. I don’t really understand that…it’s not like the info is hidden…if anything, they could build it to be less taxing on system resources, etc.

Anyway, I really slowed down my automated searching in recent days…putting over 20 seconds between searches, etc…and still got nailed. It was a long ban, too….still seeing effects of it many hours after my last search. So clearly, Google has a bee in their bonnet over this issue and they are determined to make a point of it.

So I’d recommend avoiding automated checkers for the time being. I’m hoping there will be an innovative solution somewhere in all this that satisfies everyone. But it remains to be seen what that will be.