Accurate Monitor for Search Engines completely supports the Google API provided by Google and the Yahoo! search API provided by Yahoo.

With Accurate Monitor for Search Engines, you can query Google and Yahoo in two ways: the default one, and via the Google or Yahoo API.

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

According to the Terms Of Service of Google and Yahoo, you cannot send automated queries to these search engines to check your rank (or simply to search of anything) in any way - the reason is stated above. So, to meet the ToS guidelines, you should use the 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 stage forever. It 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.

The Yahoo API seems to provide more or less accurate results, though. So, to sum it up:

• The Google and Yahoo APIs are a legitimate way to check your web ranking in these engines
• Using the Google or Yahoo API ensures that neither your site nor you will be banned from Google or Yahoo respectively.
• Using the Google or Yahoo API does not guarantee that rank positions acquired through them are true 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 or Yahoo. The search engines simply do not know what site they are supposed to ban - this info is not transferred to them.
• Using the default search method DOES mean that you (NOT your site, but your IP address) MAY be (not will be, but MAY be) banned by Google or Yahoo. It solely depends on the amount 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 or Yahoo. 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 the current search engine for 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 the SE'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



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