WebPosition Pro - no Google results

[webmama]

Has anyone else noticed that after years of threatening it appears that Google has now blocked WP Gold from reporting rankings through their tool? We called the WP support line and they said they are waiting for Google to 'do' something and have NO ETA has to when it will be fixed.

[miked918]

Since Aug. 1, any WebPosition reporter mission I run returns failed attempted for Google, with the reason being Incomplete File (CN_NP).

Funny thing is, a reporter mission was run the morning of July 31, and it worked great. I run a mission the 1st of each month, and that's when the problem started. I even reran the July 31 mission, and also received the Google problem.

I run searches for Ask, MSN and Yahoo! in those same missions, and those run okay.

WebPosition suggests to check the Internet connection. That works.

A web search has turned up nothing worth while.

So, is it just me?

Any and all help would be appreciated.
Take care,
Mike

[incoolcentral]

Yes... I noticed. I called WP and got a similar response, but that's their typical response when *any* engine enacts countermeasures. You never know if/when WP will find a workaround, though they always have in the past. Anybody else get any better answers?

BTW - I'm an idiot... my username is supposed to be Uncoolcentral. Damn. Guess I'll create a new account or something.

[JohnW]

There have been several reports last few days that WPG is blocked. Google has for a few years now, said they don't want people using it. Maybe they decided to enforce it.

"Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google."

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

[miked918]

John: Thank you for the information. In addition to its TOS, maybe Google doesn't like that an analytics competitor like WebTrends owns WebPosition?

I'm still awaiting feedback from WebPosition as to possible reasons, and will post if there's anything new.

-Mike

[JohnW]

I find that just doing a lot of manual searches, particularly with complex boolean strings or : operators, will tip Google over. So it may be an IP or cookie thing and not directly related to WPG. But who knows? Most pro SEOs don't use WPG cuz they have built something better - meaning some of the stuff you hear about it in the forums might not be so accurate anyway.

[morepro]

Nothing so far... When did this start for you?

[j0nyDzine]

Can confirm...
I got a "friend" to check and getting the exact same behavior even after "they" patched it... :rolleyes:
Looks like Google is probably making good with their stance on automated search requests somehow?

[thanu69]

Same here. I've been using WPG for years, especially for their Ranking Reports, their best feature in my opinion.

Now, NO GOOGLE RESULTS! Other SEs OK... No reply to my email to them either...yet.

So...can someone PLS tell me where I can go to get a nice Ranking Report generator?

Many thanks - Jett, Thailand

[incoolcentral]

Yeah... I'm also looking for something to replace the "reporter" portion of WPG. It was the only reason I bought the software anyhow. If they can't index Google, it becomes totally worthless to me. :( Any advice?

[memeandme]

So how do we all go about getting our money back?

[memeandme]

Hey guys check this out, it looks like Web Trends is already trying to cover up it's tracks with Google banning their software. If you do a search for Google Bans Webposition or anything similar e.g. webposition no Google, etc you'll find this link somewhere close to the top position 1stplacesoft.com which is a promotion page about webposition, noting close to what the title is except the link 1stplacesoft.com/share/partner.htm that goes to a Q&A that tries to hype webposition up by saying "Even Webposition Gold does not work with Google, the software still works very well with other major search engines. Google is just one of hundreds of search engines." WTF! Anyone who's doing SEO work knows that if you have an SEM software that can't get Google data then it's junk.

What I don't like about this whole situation is this is typical of how companies try to cover things up and make things look like something else, no transparency at all. Couple other companies that operate in this way is Host Gator, and Alexandria (SEOSpy, Link Assistant, an their other junk). [rant over].

[garystarling]

Same problem for me. I do have a Google API but the WebPosition faq reports this is no longer supported by Google.

[searchking]

Same here,

Since August 1st Google I'm getting "Incomplete File [CF_NP]"

I've submitted a support request with WP 24 hour ago and they have yet to reply!

I want my money back!

[miked918]

I'm still waiting on a reply from WebPosition support myself (nearly 24 hours).

So, if WebPosition and Google do go their separate ways, manual submissions to check on page rank is time-consuming. Any suggestions for another automated program that is not (yet) banned by Google?

-Mike

[JohnW]

Search Google for rank checker keywords, there are many freebies out there including FF extensions, web-based, etc. They may suffer the same blocking problems now or in the future. Sadly, this is an area where people who have a solution that doesn't get blocked will likely not share it publicly, because then it too would eventually get blocked.

[ScottG]

Hi folks,

This is Scott from WebPosition... I'm sorry it's not working right now but we are working on an update.

If I can put this into a rambling kind of perspective...

Remember back in the good old days when you would visit a site and depending on which web browser you were using, and what version of that browser, you may or may not get the page to display correctly?

I.E. a table would display fine in one browser but not another?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum83/4150.htm
Div tags would work or not...
http://csscreator.com/node/3279
etc.

Anyone use an OCR when they scan documents? Imagine combining a browser and OCR...
http://www.dancohen.org/2007/08/16/google-books-champagne-or-sour-grapes/

I get the whole "on no, WP is/had been/was/is it banned by Google". As Michael Gray might say... this is FUD at work. Yes, Google does not like tools that check rankings. Yes, they list WebPosition on their guidelines page. But WP is just -one- example of a type of tool that they would prefer that you not use.

But saying that we are "banned" is not true. Here is Matt Cutts confirming a ban:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/confirming-a-penalty/
Hrm... not "banned":
http://www.google.com/search?q=webposition
http://www.google.com/search?q=web+position

Because Google chooses to not follow their own Net Neutrality principles, http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html, we are the only brand name listed. Maybe they will be more neutral in the future, maybe not.

I generally wish nothing but the best for WP's competitors but you could see that some one could take a post like this one:
http://www.searchengineforums.com/apps/searchengine.forums/action::thread/forum::seo-tools/thread::1121586867/
and over the course of additional posts there, elsewhere, and over time, an echo chamber could be created. And then everyone thinks that the company mentioned in that post is "banned". Even though they are not.

As JohnW points out, there are many companies that have their own internal tools that perform functions similar to WP. They face the same issues. They have to create updates from time to time so that their tools can continue to report accurately.

For me, I some times get companies that come back to using WP because they state that running their own internal WP-like software was just too much of a head ache to keep up to date. I also gain customers when people migrate from competitors products to WP because of the same issue that WP is having right now. I'm sure my competitors are gaining a few customers from WP right now. And we'll gain a few when they have the same issue in a future Google update.

Understand that even internal tools by Google some times need to a tweak. Their own tools need tweaks, so that they can report on their own data...
http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2008/05/google-analytics-is-losing-e-c.htm

Speaking of Google... an analogy here... Google is a street scraper. GPS navigation companies are street scrapers. They go out to various cities or hire third parties to scrape street and route data. Then put it into their maps products. Are they 100% accurate, all the time? No. Even though one way streets, highways, etc. are slow to change - Google and GPS nav data is never 100% accurate. It's the same basic thing, different scale.

[j0nyDzine]

ScottG, thanks for replying here, it's good to know that you're working on a patch!
Errr... That's what my "friend" says, anyhow =)

[ScottG]

A few more bits to mention...

For the time being, you might want to check an engine that private labels Google's search results. For example... AOL/Netscape ;)

[bigjohnjohn]

So has anyone come up with a viable working alternative (havent looked at the private label option yet)

[ScottG]

Define viable. :confused:

WP is only one in a sea of free and paid services and products. Google doesn't want you to check your rankings from their database in any way, but by hand, and ideally if you are a searchers and not a marketer checking your rankings.

I still don't get Google's logic. They use automated means to scoop up your site content, then re-market that content as a search engine and place advertisements next to your info. Kettle meet pot. Pot meet kettle.

[VictorEdinian]

WebPosition - I'm also getting the same error for Google [CF_NP]

[ScottG]

Hi Victor,
Right. I think that it why some one started this thread. In any case... we're working on it. Not ready yet. When an update is ready, it should to out automatically.

[VictorEdinian]

Hey Scott,

Thanks for letting us know, as well as working on a fix.

(when reading posts, it's helpful to look at the post date, as opposed to join date :rolleyes:)

Have a great weekend people!

[Webmaster T]

Scott this is the usual WP FUD. This is not a Net Neutrality issue. Google is blocking your program because it exploits its resources and therefore breaks its TOS. Do you even know what Net Neutrality is about? Google is not the first to block you, Northern Light has in the past as well. Your company always points the finger and lays blame at the feet of those you exploit... It's rediculous that people are still using this garbage when there are real analytics programs that can be used to identify the problem. Your sofyware tells me a position that beyond that provides absolutely nothing I can use to identify the reason for a bad rank or lack of sales from a good ranking. You're software is not robots.txt compliant and is a scurge that should be blocked because you have done absolutely nothing in the last 10 years to take action to lighten the millions of requests made by your software why should Google pay for that. It benefits no one but WP and it's users! Google can block you entirely because NL did. Google has given your company more than enough time to wise up. To those who bought it? Tough luck these guys don't stand behind their products they choose to blame the engines. Kinda like the rapist that claims the victim was asking for it!

[Webmaster T]

Define viable. :confused:
I still don't get Google's logic. They use automated means to scoop up your site content, then re-market that content as a search engine and place advertisements next to your info. Kettle meet pot. Pot meet kettle.They are are at least paying for a portion of the bandwidth to do the scooping... is WP? I give permission by allowing them in Robots.txt. You're program ignores Robots.txt and crawls sites that try to block you. So... as a spider it is non-compliant. I know because I have tried to block your software from stealing my bandwidth while lazy SEOs are getting intelligence about my pages. I don't mind manual... Automated is BS and IMO, unethical when I'm baring the costs. Your software is no different then a spider that goes to a site and scoops up all the email addresses and resells them to spammers. Explain how WP is any different then that spider grabbing email addresses and reselling them? It works exactly the same. WP takes information off a site in exactly the same manner as the email bot. The only difference is the target and resource being exploited with no regard for the cost to those you exploit!

[VictorEdinian]

I understand your frustration, but at the same time, there are two sides to a story.

While I don't want to go into a long defense as to why WP is a great software, and what they're doing is no different than what hundreds of other Internet tools do, I can say that without this automation, my agency would be in the business of manual labor and not efficiencies.

There is abuse everywhere, but for the majority of white hat firms that use this software, and don't have the resources to build an inhouse script / program, WP is gold.

[Misscj]

I understand that clients want to see their ranking reports, which is usually how they measure their success in seo. The thing is that they should be looking at their traffic and conversion data, subscriptions and that kind of thing. Personalisation and such things are already making ranking information a bit flaky at best.

Hammering anyone's servers is naughty. Plenty of black-hat hackers will know ways around that, but it's not really worth it.

[Webmaster T]

I understand that clients want to see their ranking reportsWell... these are clients sadly in need of information on why a ranking report is useless! Clients don't even really know why they want it... it's likely because Some SEO who uses this told them it was good.which is usually how they measure their success in seo.Yikes that is so sad! Any SEO that would use that as a measure of success is an idiot just filling orders not selling a valuable service.The thing is that they should be looking at their traffic and conversion data, subscriptions and that kind of thing. Personalisation and such things are already making ranking information a bit flaky at best.Agreed those actually provide data and info that is actionable. A ranking report is useless beyond telling you a rank which may or may not be accurate.Hammering anyone's servers is naughty. Plenty of black-hat hackers will know ways around that, but it's not really worth it.There are lots of ways to avoid it, that is why I have no pity for WP! Just because they are one of many nuisances loose on the net isn't a good reason to say this is ok. Somewhere along the line I assume the email harvesters made the same kind of defences. I would have no problem with a harvester that was Robots.txt compliant because then I can deal with it. When they ignore it they become a nuisance and should not be tolerated. About 1 line of code makes this compliant and or enables it to be blocked. They take the opposite actions because the program would be rendered useless by implementing it.

[incoolcentral]

Friends

if we check their site in yahoo site explorer so there is coming some old Urls of their's site.

Eric

Off topic. Post somewhere else?

For the record, ScottG and the WP support team have always treated me right. I'm fairly confident they'll develop a counter-countermeasure... in time :(

Re: the need for rank data - it's not as valuable as traffic or conversion metrics, but when it's easy to cull, it's the frosting on any comprehensive report. It tastes good. Clients like to eat it. I give it to them as desert.

[mcanerin]

This whole thread just caused me to write a long rant (http://mcanerin.blogspot.com/2008/08/ranking-reports-defence.html), mostly because I disagree strongly with the "rankings don't matter" crowd.

As long as search engines deliver important numbers of visitors, and the amount of visitors they deliver varies significantly based on rankings, then your rankings are important. How could they not be?

I realize that focusing too much on rankings can be bad, but I think too many people have over-corrected and are now focusing too much on analytics.

The problem with analytics is that it's an advanced form of navel gazing - it uses server based data and therefore has no context.

Let's say that your analytics tells you that you have doubled your conversions and sales. Sounds great, right?

But if you don't know that you are ranked on page 4 of Google for those keywords, then you don't know that your competitors have possibly increased their conversions and sales by a hundredfold. You don't know this because there is no context available. The data is meaningless except when compared to itself. It's not relevant in an environment that includes competition, market forces or limited resources. These are all context. Real businesses have competition, and real businesses need to pay attention to that competition. Analytics doesn't do that, unless you have managed to get access to your competitors logs somehow.

In order to understand your analytics (internal data), you need to understand the context (external data). This includes many things, including rankings, social media, and so on.

The rant in my blog is a lot longer and more detailed than this, but I'd like to go on record here as saying that a search marketer that doesn't pay attention to, or measure, search engine data, is not doing their job.

Imagine trying to run a PPC campaign but not knowing your impressions or CTR - just looking at your conversions. You'd almost certainly do a terrible job, and worse, you would not even know it until it's too late. The same applies to SEO.

In any kind of data analysis, context is king. And in search, that includes search engine rankings.

My (very strongly held) opinion,

Ian

[Misscj]

Good points all round mcanerin. I understand what you're saying and there's value in that.

2 years ago I announced to my seo collegues that in the next few years I could see there being no rankings at all, but rather competition over the most relevant and valuable content on different pages. They teased me, which is fair enough. I said the same thing to my science collegues and they went...hummm...yes....indeed...quite possible. You might want to look at these papers..etc...

The work in personalisation and geotargeting and so on isn't new, science people have been testing these for yonks, and it seems inevitable that large engines would start using it as well, seeing as they contributed a lot to this research.

I agree with those seeking more than rankings, especially when so many get personalised results, especially in Google where a lot of people have an account for at least one of their services. I can see where you're coming from too, and I think that right now, for the next few months (or year or 2) that rankings without personalisation are going to matter and will be able to give you valuable information. And no doubt traffic.

I just believe it's time to prepare yourselves for something new, a different format. Appealing to people rather than drawing them in with a listing.

I've said it before, but there's work going on in summarization and content aggregation which would enable the user to get info without necessarily visiting a website. That puts a twist on things doesn't it.