With Free Monitor for Google, you can query Google in two ways: the default one and via the Google API.

The first one is not a legitimate way to check your Google web rank, while the second one is. What is the difference? When Free Monitor for Google uses the default way to check rankings, it pretends to be a browser, that is, a real person browsing the Google site in search of some particular things. Obviously, this virtual user brings nothing to Google - it won't click ad banners, it won't download any Google tools, etc., therefore this user is useless for Google.

According to the Google Terms Of Service, you cannot send automated queries to Google to check your rank (or simply to search) in any way - the reason is stated above. So, to comply with the ToS guidelines you should use the Google API - a special service providing you with the rank info.

Unfortunately, the Google API is still in the beta stage and it seems to have frozen in this state forever. This means that there are no any guarantees that web rankings provided by the Google API are true. This is the main disadvantage of the Google API.

So, summarizing all of the above:

• The Google API is a legitimate way to check your rank in Google
• Using the Google API ensures that neither your site nor you will be banned from Google
• Using the Google API does not guarantee that rank positions obtained with it are actual and up-to-date.

At the same time:

• Using the default (browser-like) search method does NOT mean your site will be banned from Google. Google simply does not know what site it is supposed to ban - this info is not transferred to Google.
• Using the default search method DOES mean that you (NOT your site) MAY be (not will be, but MAY be) banned by Google. This is solely depends on the number of queries you perform.

What is the safe number of queries you can perform using the default method without a risk of being banned? Well, it is easy. Simply do not query 1000 keywords for the first 100 results at once. Limit your queries to 3-5 pages (30-50 results). In most cases, this is enough to get the idea of how well your site is doing on Google. There are few people who look beyond the 5th page in SERPs, so if your site is below that page you might as well think that your site is not listed in Google by that keyword at all - the number of visitors in both cases is the same - zero.

If you really need to query 1000 or more keywords at once, use the Proxy server settings in the Preferences window or divide keywords into several groups and check them sequentially.

Put yourself in Google's position and think how many automated queries to YOUR site would you allow before you banned the IP they come from? Start from that number and everything will be fine.

Important notice: Google does not support SOAP web search API anymore. This option is left for backward compatibility only.

Related link: 10 Tips to Avoid Google ban



Return to the features list