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Search engines and position checking software

Many Search Engine Visibility readers will find that I do not agree with the majority of search engine optimization (SEO) professionals on the topic of position checking. In fact, many of you might be outright surprised at my response to this question:

Can you recommend any position checking software?

I do not endorse any position checking software. I have optimized web sites since 1995 with a 100% success rate, and I have never used position checking software as part of my optimizatin strategy. I believe that position checking, as a whole, is a waste of time and energy.

Search engine positioning and blended search

One of the reasons I do not utilize position checking software is that search engine positions have never been permanent. Positioning always fluctuates, even 5 years ago. For example, I might be speaking with a client on the phone, and he might tell me that one of his web pages is in position #5. And when I perform the same query, I see that his web page is in position #3. What is happening is that we are querying different servers. It happens all of the time.

Search engine results might include listings from the image index, the video index, the blog index, and the news index along with ads and the standard XTML-formatted web pages.

Enter blended search, where the "organic" search engine results might include listings from the image index, the video index, the blog index, and the news index along with ads and the "regular" spidered web pages. As we all know, news search results and blog search results tend to get updated very quickly. Search results for the same keyword phrase can look different from minute to minute.

Additionally, personalized search certainly makes it possible for searchers to tailor their search engine results pages (SERPs). If a searcher does not like a web site appearing in search results? The searcher can tell Google, for example, that he does not want that web site to appear in his personalized search results anymore.

Search engine positions have always fluctuated. Now, positioning can fluctuate even more, and even disappear if searchers do not like your web site.

As an SEO professional and web designer/developer, I understand the need and desire for qualified search engine traffic. But I have never obsessed over positioning since I know positioning is not permanent, and no SEO professional controls positioning (even though they will tell you they do).

Search engines and position checking software

No position checking software company that I know of has received permission from the search engines to perform automated queries on their indices. One reason permission is not given (I learned this at search engine conferences) is server load and advertisers.

Picture this. You have a site with over 100 keyword phrases. You want to measure your site's search engine visibility. So you use some kind of position checking software to do the work for you. That's 100 queries per search engine. Let's assume you check 10 search engines. That's 1,000 queries.

Now, let's say 100 people are in the same situation you are in. That's 100 x 1,000 queries = 100,000 queries. And so on and so on. Imagine the server load for the thousands of people who use position checking software.

Search engines were not created for people to do position checking. They were created to provide relevant search results. The server load interferes with the search engines' ability to do their job. Search engine reps don't like that. Search engine users don't like that.

Furthermore, advertisers pay for space on the search engines. How are advertisers to differentiate a query from software vs. a qualified visitor?

Conclusion

So, ethically, I cannot endorse position checking software. As soon as a search engine endorses one, I will endorse it, too. If you work for a position checking software company and approach me to endorse your software, please be aware that the first thing I will do is contact search engine representatives and ask them if you have permission to perform automated queries. If the answer is "no," then I will not endorse your software.

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