Does SEOmoz Violate the Google Terms of Service?

by macyvo
6 replies
The legal team of a client of ours is concerned with how we propose to automatically collect and store their Bing/Google search placement for reporting purposes. We're aware of the terms listed on the search engines' websites, but there are tons of companies like SEOmoz and many others that have made a business out of doing this.

Obviously Matt Cutts and the Google team know what Rand and SEOmoz does, can anyone help point to something on the web that shows how/why Google is ok with this? I've found a few people talking about this on the web, but nothing that would satisfy the client's legal dept.

From what I understand, SEOmoz (and others) do not have a deal with Google. They just have a bot that scrapes the search data and stores it for future reporting.

Google Terms of Service
5.3 You agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the Services by any means other than through the interface that is provided by Google, unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate agreement with Google. You specifically agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the Services through any automated means (including use of scripts or web crawlers) and shall ensure that you comply with the instructions set out in any robots.txt file present on the Services.

Microsoft Service Agreement
You must not: ... or use any automated process or service (such as a bot, a spider, periodic caching of information stored by Microsoft, or metasearching) to access or use the service.
#google #seomoz #service #terms #violate
  • Profile picture of the author Chris Munch
    I strongly suspect that SEOMoz have an agreement with Google to access large quantities of data through the Google API.

    SEOMoz has a support team so try emailing them to find out.

    Honestly if a company is being that fussy about a standard practice then I would wonder if they would be worthwhile as a client. Is their legal department going to be like this all through your SEO campaign? Is it worth working with such a company when there are much more relaxed clients out there?
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    • Profile picture of the author tpw
      Originally Posted by ChrisTew View Post

      I strongly suspect that SEOMoz have an agreement with Google to access large quantities of data through the Google API.

      You cannot get large volumes of data out of Google without a browser or a Google API...

      With the browser, it is a manual process for you to undertake...

      If anyone is doing it automatically, they are doing it under license using the Google API...
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  • Profile picture of the author tombuckland
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy here?

      We put a site online and Google can scrape the crap out of any and all
      content we put up without even asking us but we can't do the same?

      Please...don't even get me started on what I think of Google and what they
      can kiss of my anatomy.
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      • Profile picture of the author TelZilla
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy here?

        We put a site online and Google can scrape the crap out of any and all
        content we put up without even asking us but we can't do the same?

        Please...don't even get me started on what I think of Google and what they
        can kiss of my anatomy.
        LOL, amen Steven. I couldn't agree with you more. Google is collecting entirely too much information on everyone for my comfort. There are no such things as secrets anymore. The Goog knows all.
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        Don't get so wrapped up in making money that you forget the important things in life.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    You have to remember that a lot of techniques used out here in the wild world of SEO and Internet marketing won't fly in the legalistic corporate world, especially when government regs like SOX come into play. Just get the API license and be done with it. That will get the Googlenoid corporate legal beagles off your case and you'll be doing the right thing so far as Google is concerned.
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  • Profile picture of the author macyvo
    We called SEOmoz and was told that they do not use the Google API. They scrape the data using computers all over the US/world and they don't have any agreement with Google.

    I'd love to know what Google's official (or even acting) position is on this. We're all being forced to decide between what appears to be the legal thing to do vs. widely accepted practice.

    What's so weird is that SEOmoz is such a big company and Matt Cutts/Google is well aware of everything that they are doing. How this could be happening (here and many other companies) is so hard to explain.
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