Beware of automated ranking checkers

[Steve Crooks]

Okay, I am not going to use this thread as a way to bash SEO Elite as please believe me when I say it is an awesome tool and I am extremely happy with this purchase I made a few years ago. However, I want to share my experiences with program 5 which everyone should be aware of.

A while ago, I had a site deindexed from Google immediately after checking it's rankings using SEO Elite program 5. I am not one for a knee jerk reaction or anything like that, in fact part of me thought it was purely coincidental that the site should be completely deindexed literally immediately after using SEO elite program 5. Of course I checked with Google through my webmaster tools account and they eventually told me that I had been using an automated checker which goes against their TOS and that was the reason.

Fast forward to today and for some stupid reason I decided to open up SEO Elite again and use program 5 to check just a few keywords for my European cruise blog. Lo and behold almost immediately after testing these keywords the blog has dropped down into oblivion for its main keyword phrase "European cruises". It is still indexed but down into the deep recesses of Google's index. I am hoping this is only a temporary thing and it will bounce back as just another episode of the Google dance.

Now, I know a lot of people will completely disagree that SEO Elite prog 5 could have done this but it has happened twice to me now. I know I should have just left prog 5 well alone after my previous problem but it was a stupid mistake of mine.

Now for the really important common denominator between the two episodes that has just occurred to me. Both times I was logged into my Google webmaster account when I fired up prog 5.. I understand the way prog 5 works in that it passively opens a browser in the background and checks keywords as if a human was doing it but what if you are logged into your webmaster account? It wouldn't take a lot to correlate between automated keyword checking and a site in your webmaster account to see what keywords it ranks for.. I have no proof, but as this has now happened twice to me I am seriously thinking that prog 5 is the problem.

Like I said at the start, SEO Elite overall is a superb piece of software that I still promote and I will continue to use every other program in it because it has helped me with everything from niche research to finding awesome backlinks but prog 5 has a red flag for me. I don't want to single out SEO Elite as I am pretty sure that if I am right then all automated ranking checkers would be the same. I am only telling you as a warning which you can either heed or write off as the ramblings of a crackpot but either way it is important enough to be known.

[Amenda Jessera]

Hey thanks for sharing your experience with us, it will help others to be alert...

[bgmacaw]

I think what you're seeing is just normal fluctuation in Google rankings for a competitive niche. You're still ranking well on your long tails as far as I can see.

SEO Elite, if it opens an instance of IE, will be in a separate process from a regular browser session where you were logged into Webmaster Tools. The SEO Elite process won't be logged in to the same session. The IP address would, of course, be the same, but I doubt that even Google has the resources and will to track individual activity at this level and apply it to search results. In other words, don't be Googlenoid.

[tazsolmarketing]

thanks for sharing...

[howdoyou]

Very good read. SEO Elite is great.

[Steve Crooks]

It could well be that I am becoming a googlenoid.. (love that term by the way). I hope you are right for all our sakes, I guess when this sort of thing happens to you twice then the googlenoia takes over a bit. However, I will not be using any automation to check rankings from now on just to play it safe.

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

I think what you're seeing is just normal fluctuation in Google rankings for a competitive niche. You're still ranking well on your long tails as far as I can see.

SEO Elite, if it opens an instance of IE, will be in a separate process from a regular browser session where you were logged into Webmaster Tools. The SEO Elite process won't be logged in to the same session. The IP address would, of course, be the same, but I doubt that even Google has the resources and will to track individual activity at this level and apply it to search results. In other words, don't be Googlenoid.

[Steve Crooks]

Yes it is, and before I have to incur the wrath of Brad Callen, I would buy it over and over again. In fact it is the only tool that I bought when I started in IM 4 or 5 years ago that still has pride of place on my hard drive.. Just don't like prog 5 anymore, maybe I am being Googlenoid.

Originally Posted by howdoyou

Very good read. SEO Elite is great.

[bgmacaw]

I'm seeing a lot of bouncing around in Google right now for some of my sites and I've heard some other people say the same about theirs so I suspect they're rolling out some new or updated algorithms right now. So what you're seeing may just be coincidental.

[rob6188]

I'm really upset now. I had site getting 100-300 hits per day, now almost zero overnight.

I did use an autorank checker, and it's the only thing I can think of now that is causing this. My site is totally deindexed in google. Nothing comes up when I use the site and cache command.

I wrote one article for it and put it on ezine and go about 2 months ago. Some traffic from that, but the site had a nearly 99% seo traffic all by itself.

I hope this doesn't happen to all my sites. I put the whole list of my domains into that autorank checker twice. I'm now deleting that software off my computer.

I'm gonna try creating the sitemap for it and submitting it. Man I'm pissed.

[franchiseshop]

I really would not have thought it was SEO Elite either. True that it is against Google's T&C to use automated ranking checkers but in my opinion they would only penalise for extreme levels of activity from the actual hosting server IP itself.

Lets look at it this way. I could open up SEO elite and run it like crazy against my competitors and get them banned? No I do not think so.

However you could be really paranoid and think that they can track the website is yours from your IP address being logged into your webmaster tools but this would be highly unlikely and take some considerable resources as the tracking would need to be done for millions of IP addresses, some of which would conflict.

So. In all honesty I would not worry about this, probably the ranking drop/fluctuation is due to anything from an update to a datacentre being down to, well, who knows but unlikely SEO Elite.