Fair enough, but I'd like the current list before I buy it. Anyone know?

Have you checked out www.agentwebranking.com? It's still free so hurry.

Is topdog or agentwebranking an alternative to avoid webposition/google problem?

They all claim this - WPG, AWR and TD. If you abuse Google using a tool like these, they will block your IP from originating queries.

If a ranking software simulates a real manual search, people using such software will not be in troubles?

I know the answer for webposition users, but has anyone been baned for using agentwebranking or topdogg software?

They block the IP from which you do your position checking from doing position checking. They do this when people abuse the system eg some not so smart people check their Google positions daily. This, of course, is a complete waste of time and resources as there are only minor changes, if any at all, to rankings over the course of each cycle. Each cycle is approximately 4 weeks. Thus rankings only need to be checked once per cycle.

Your question is not dissimilar to saying " I know the answer for Porsche drivers, but has anyone been booked for speeding for driving Ferraris or Maseratis?"

It is not the car that is at fault - it is the driver. These position checking programs now incorporate the equivalent of speed governors in their software for the protection of their halfwhitted users (only a small % of their total users) who are incapable of applying common sense to position checking.

"These position checking programs now incorporate the equivalent of speed governors in their software for the protection of their halfwhitted users"

Where did you read about it?

"Public statements made by company reps".

I went to webposition website and I could not find the "public statements" you are talking about. Can you provide the url where I can read about it.

Sure! I believe this is the statement you were referring to from our newsletters:

Over-use of any automated query tool may get you red-flagged or banned on Google according to the Google representative in the Webcast interview. Other Google representatives claim any amount of use of automated tools is not tolerated.

In past months, a small percentage of WebPosition users (a fraction of one percent) have reported to us of having their IP address blocked by Google, presumably for querying Google excessively. The magical number of queries that puts you on Google's radar is not known.

Users who have an IP address that is dynamically assigned on each connection are not nearly as susceptible to this issue. This is particularly true if you re-dial your connection between running a Reporter and a Submitter mission so the queries cannot be associated on the same IP.

We have recently updated WebPosition Gold to be more "polite" when accessing Google by only conducting one search at a time against the service in most cases. We are working on another update to be available soon which will allow you to slow down searches even further in consideration to Google.

The recent interview of a Google engineer recommended that if you conduct automated queries on Google, that you keep those queries to a minimum and that you schedule them to run late at night. In the case of WebPosition, you should try to utilize the built-in scheduler feature to run missions late at night and to space them out over a greater period of time whenever possible. Never conduct thousands of queries on Google in a single day.

In addition, you can space out queries in WebPosition by limiting the number of parallel searches on the WebPosition Options tab for either the Reporter or Submitter. The default is eight searches or submissions at a time spread across the selected engines.

Reducing the number of parallel searches to four will approximately double the amount of time between each search on any given engine. This will require more time for your mission to complete, but it will be more polite to each search engine. This example assumes that the mission has four or more engines selected. The current version will attempt to query a different engine for each parallel search allowed if enough engines were selected.

Important: Since we are working on a free update to greatly reduce the chances of you being red-flagged or banned by Google, while being more considerate to Google's wishes, we recommend that you consider postponing your rank checking on Google until this update is released (expected by mid-February).

***This was actually released in April of 2001 and was version 1.50.7.

"tell it a time frame for how far apart you would like your searches spaced"

anatole - this is the speed governor.

thanks for your answer.

"Important: Since we are working on a free update to greatly reduce the chances of you being red-flagged or banned by Google, while being more considerate to Google's wishes, we recommend that you consider postponing your rank checking on Google until this update is released (expected by mid-February)."

If I download webposition version 2.0, do you still recommend "postponing your rank checking on Google"?