WebPosition Gold Opinions

[ephricon]

I'm considering purchasing and using WebPosition Gold to track my rankings in all major search engines EXCEPT Google. I would like to get the thoughts of anyone currently using it...

I realize tracking SE rankings is just one piece of the pie. I'm currently happy with the way I'm addressing the other pieces of that pie - namely analyzing traffic stats and actual leads/sales.

I'm particularly interested in WPG as a tool to track rankings for a good number of client sites of mine - mainly in Yahoo, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, etc. and also to use the version that allows me to create and brand my own reports to pass on to my clients (the $300 something version, not the $150 version as I want to brand the reports for my co.).

Any and all opinions are appreciated. Also, does anyone has good reason to believe using this tool has hurt their rankings in any search engines (or is likely to?)??? Thanks!!!

[Old Welsh Guy]

Hi Ephricon,

As you probably know ;-) I am a fierce critic of WPG, but for what you are using it for it is in fact ideal. WPG gets a bum rap in a lot of cases, as people confuse the fact that using it on Google is against the Google T & C, with it somehow being the spawn of the devil, (which it is not).

Report writing takes a lot of time, and for that reason alone WPG is worth it, Tracking on AOL is almost as good as Google tracking anyhow, I would add this to the report stating that AOL uses Google data, and that google positions will be within a few positions of the AOL stats.

OWG

[ephricon]

Great thanks so much for the input. My thinking as to not use it for Google is two fold: 1) I don't want to do anything to run the risk of hurting any of my site's rankings - in fact, i dont want to have to even worry about this possibility, and 2) as you mentioned, the AOL rankings are pretty close too Google's now, and when in doubt I certainly will continue to utilize this great DP tracking tool for Google which is legit and all given the API key.

Thanks so much for your input. Any other supporters or critics?

[ephricon]

Cough, cough (***BUMP***)....

I'm considering purchasing the advanced version. Anyone actually heard anything legitimate regarding how WPG2 can hurt a site???

[mcdar]

Cough, cough (***BUMP***)....

I'm considering purchasing the advanced version. Anyone actually heard anything legitimate regarding how WPG2 can hurt a site???

ephricon,

I have used WPG in the past and really liked the personalized report function.
I stopped using it however, because every time I turned around I had to pay another ~$94. for an update or it would not work.

I originally paid for the professional version. The one time purchase I could justify. The continuous charges, I could not.

Caryl

[TechEvangelist]

The company that produces WebPosition Gold has a MarketPosition newsletter. Their January 2004 issue makes a good case that proper use will not create problems with Google. The important word here is "proper." Monthly use of the WebPosition Gold Reporter should not raise any issues with Google if you abide by some simple rules. A Google rep once told me that they posted the warning about automated queries so that they could deal with a large number of imbeciles that were running automated queries hourly or continuously.

Here's the link to the January issue of MarketPosition:

http://www.marketposition.com/mp-0104.htm

The article explains the proper use of WebPosition Gold so as not to upset Google. They also mention the use of AOL data if you are skittish about Google.

Craig

[ephricon]

Thanks Craig,

I read the newsletter and it did a nice job of organizing common sense with a little bit of an analysis of Google's policies. In any case, I likely would not use WPG for Google, simply because there are other options - but it does still seem to be a nice tool for other engines.

[TatiAnA]

I don't wana say anything against WebPosition Gold but you might wana take a look at this http://www.socialpatterns.com/search-engine-marketing/webposition-banned/