Will Google provide a rank-checking service?
On February 26, 2009, Google software engineer Matt Cutts collected questions on Google Moderator and answered many of them on video.
Mark Lykle from Oslo, Norway asked:
When will Google create a software similar to Web Position so that SEOs, spam fighters and regular webmasters can check rankings etc. without violating the guidelines? Why not make a better product instead of going to war against these programs?
Duration : 0:2:56
nice video. i want …
nice video. i want to bookmark this page.
@twparker1 You can …
@twparker1 You can check Wiki for “Web scraping” for the exact definition, but its pretty much when a website is created to go to google and copy (or scrape) the content and bring it back to the originating website. From there the data can either be displayed (for example, without their ads, or in a different format), or stored in a database. It slows server resources cause they can scrape 1000’s of pages in a very short time, much faster than a human, and it can overload the servers.
Klasse… Prima …
Klasse… Prima gemacht…
this was a very …
this was a very good answer
What does scrapping …
What does scrapping mean?
Server logs show …
Server logs show you what words are bringing people to your site, and his point is to pay more attention to those click-through keywords and targeting or expanding them, based on the server-log results, rather than spending most of your time seeing where you rank on the SERPs. It’s a “Both-and” thing, not an “Either-Or,” but working with your keywords should take priority over just seeing where you rank. There are plenty of keywords that DO show LESS relevant sites at #1, e.g. parked domains.
Its really …
Its really beneficial to all the online marketers to have a useful keyword ranking tool from Google itself. Most of the available tools are not able to provide exact rankings and also they unnecessarily increase the search volume.
Does this mean the …
Does this mean the digitalpoint keyword tracker is bad?
Why not provide …
Why not provide rankings up to Page 2? I don’t think that would strain the system too much, and by providing a free tool, your overall CTRs wouldn’t be quite so deflated.
i hate how the …
i hate how the results in webmaster tools ‘Top Search Queries’ are NEVER accurate to the current situation and usually pretty darn old…. anyone? – @kronis
K, so first you say …
K, so first you say, don’t scrape – don’t check rankings. Then you say IF your ranking #5… Work on #2? And you’ll know this by server logs? Sever logs don’t tell your position?
“How adding ONE tool in webmaster central would unsubscribe thouands of Web Position Gold subscribers and increase Google’s bandwidth for the general public” Seems like a no brainer.. no?
Almost 50 years ago …
j/k 
Love these videos… Keep them coming!
Almost 50 years ago I got hooked smoking cigarettes. Some people said; blame it on the cigarettes manufactures… Who do you think is going to be blame when the ranking junkie can’t get another fix?
Thanks for …
Thanks for answering this! SEO’s working on sites w/little or no keyword optimization may desire a rank checker to expedite the review process once SEO mechanics are installed. Plus it helps keep an accurate record on loss/gain in keyword rank over time. While I believe more established sites should focus on core terms yielding traffic, it would be useful for a site in need of stronger optimization. I get your reason for not yet providing a tool – allocate the time to more worthwhile projects.
The joys of twitter …
The joys of twitter. Matt, you should have twittered about it when you posted it here, not days later
I have many SEO …
I have many SEO clients, and what I do is get people’s rankings higher on Google. That is what I am measurable against. Measurable? How? Matt, you say get a top 20 to top 5! I agree. But how do we know its top 5. It is great to manually check a few clients. Get many clients and automated system needed. Trigger reports-rankings +-5, tables showing +-/ % top 5…
I recommend you put work into a better API (now defunct) based on country/geolocation parameters, then let people develop programs.
but we ARE obsessed …
but we ARE obsessed with rankings…
cant help it….
Matt add to video …
Matt add to video subtitle please. thanks.
Very informative …
Very informative Matt – it would be great to expand the Webmaster Tools functionality.
Interesting video . …
Interesting video .. Thanks