Keyword Tracker's Google search results appear to be completely unreliable

My settings restrict ranking to the United States and English. I run my queries from the same location/IP address every month. The advanced usage script is installed on my Web host's server in the folder where it's supposed to be installed. I don't use my Google API for anything else. I don't know whether SEO Logs uses a Google API. I do know that the problem that I've described has been occurring for many months.

Only a few people have complained for a couple of reasons:

(1) Only a relatively small number of people are following this thread.

(2) Of those who are following this thread, only a handful have checked Keyword Tracker's Google results against a manual search and/or against SEO Logs' Google results.

Notice that nobody has reported that Keyword Tracker's Google results match the results of a manual search or SEO Logs' Google results. Have you done any comparisons yourself? If you haven't, you should, and you should report your results here.

I don't know what kind of relationship, if any, you have with Google, but it would be very helpful if you would mention this problem to Google on behalf of your 12,564 users. That would make a lot more sense than a few of us writing to Google as individuals, especially because we would have to mention Digital Point's Keyword Tracker in anything that we would write.

Will you write to Google for us?

 

If there are 62,841 Keyword Tracker users rather than 12,564, that only makes my point more valid than it already was.

Just to see whether turning off the restrictions in Keyword Tracker would make a difference, I ran Keyword Tracker with the restrictions on, turned them off and then ran Keyword Tracker again. The results can be seen in the table located here: http://www.erwaxman.com/private/Restrictions.html

You will notice that turning off the restrictions made no difference at all. Every single keyword came up N/A -- not in the top 100 -- both ways. In all the time that I've been using Keyword Tracker, I've never had all of my keywords come up N/A before.

The table shows the results that Keyword Tracker produced a week ago, when many of the results were N/A, but some were not. Just as I demonstrated with the table located at http://www.erwaxman.com/private/Google.html, both a manual check and an SEO Logs check of my keywords showed that nearly all of them rank in the top 100 and most of them rank in the top 10.

Is it a coincidence that all of my keywords are suddenly N/A according to Keyword Tracker when that has never happened before? It may be somewhat uncharitable of me, but I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, I don't believe in Santa Claus and I damn well don't believe that Keyword Tracker suddenly decided all by itself that Google no longer ranks either of my sites in the top 100 on any of the keywords on which I searched. I think that someone whose name I won't mention to protect the guilty decided to show his displeasure with this thread by making Keyword Tracker skunk me.

Tell me that Shawn can't manipulate the results that Keyword Tracker produces, and I'll call you a fool or a liar or both. He obviously can and did manipulate the results of my last two searches. There is no other way to explain the data in the table, all of which, except for the data from a week ago, were produced within a three-hour period tonight (or to be precise, considering that it's past 2 AM in the Eastern time zone, last night).

Shawn, rather than being childishly vindictive, why don't you admit that there's a problem with the Google results that Keyword Tracker reports and try to fix it?

To repeat myself, it would be very helpful if you would mention the problem of unreliable results to Google on behalf of your 12,564 -- oops, 62,841 -- users. Doing so would more than make up for the pathetic game that you played with my search results. Again to repeat myself, Keyword Tracker is a valuable tool only if the results that it reports are accurate.

 

here's one: http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php

 

Well I have to say that I am saddened by Shawn's lack of concern for our issues. I can't believe that you (Shawn) would not care that your product is in such dire straits. We have made several valid points here, and asked a few very important questions - all of which you have either ignored or only half answered.

I am a consultant in the industry and I will no longer be using your tools, nor will I advise any of my clients to do so. Your software is flawed and does not report correctly. Period. You clearly are not interested in resolving the issue, and since that is your choice then I will simply bid this forum and the site adieu.

-SC

 

Well, McDar is better than nothing, but it's awkward, confusing, slow, complicated and difficult to use. Plus, it doesn't provide any results from MSN and Yahoo. The same can be said of the SEO Logs Data Center Rank Check and Search Tools.

I'm not sure which is worse, Shawn, wishing that you had enough spare time to mess with my results or failing to deny that you somehow managed to find the spare time to do precisely that. Miraculously, my Google results from Keyword Tracker are back to "normal" today, which doesn't mean that they're correct, only that they're no longer all N/A. You wouldn't know anything about that either, I'm sure.

The "big fuss" is that Keyword Tracker's Google results bear almost no relationship to results obtained manually or from SEO Logs, which calls their accuracy into question, to say the least. It's really bothersome that you don't seem to give a rat's ass about the problem of Keyword Tracker producing inaccurate results. You apparently don't consider inaccurate results to be a problem.

SEO Logs produces results that appear to be accurate, and so does McDar, but, as I said above, they are awkward, confusing, slow, complicated and difficult to use. Plus, they don't provide any results from MSN and Yahoo. So, unlike sc123, I won't be bidding Keyword Tracker adieu. I'll continue using it to obtain results from MSN and Yahoo.

As you obviously don't intend to write to Google, I will. And anyone else who has noticed that Keyword Tracker's Google results look a little strange should also write to Google. For all we know, some kind of minor adjustment by Google can clear up the problem. You won't care, Shawn, but at least some of your users will.

"Digital Point -- We'd Be Glad to Sabotage Your Results If We Had the Time"

 

It would have been helpful if you had provided this information in your initial response, instead of reacting so defensively. And not to dwell on the point, but you were the one who raised the issue of messing with my results and wished that you had enough time to do so.

I don't know what an API is, much less how it works. I put the script in the appropriate location, listed my sites and keywords and have been clicking Check All once a month ever since. I go and take care of business for an hour or so, and when I return, there are results. It's like magic, only without the corny music. I appreciate the service that you provide and now understand that the problem is caused by Google, not by you.

I'm going to ask Google why results aren't synched across all of their Data Centers and in particular why their API results are so out of line with manual search results. If I ask, perhaps I won't get a reply. If I don't ask, I definitely won't get a reply. So it's worth asking. If I do get a reply, I'll post it here.

 

Dude you made me laugh, I think after your API code's # of queries are up for the day, you will always get N/A or not in the top 1000. Yes, Shawn or his programmers could handle that better but you accuse him of too much

Eric

 

My standard monthly ranking check is roughly 40 queries for each of my two sites. I don't think that 80 queries are anywhere near the allowable daily limit for my API code, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

It's actually 43 keywords searching 100 places deep, and my sites rank highly on many of the keywords, so I'm not coming anywhere near the 1,000 queries per day that I'm allowed.

I just read through your FAQ, which you've revised since the last time that I read them, and then started a new search from the beginning of the listings by "clicking here." How do I reverse the process to go back to searching from the most recent rankings?

 

It may have been more than 2 1/2 years since the last time I read through the FAQ, or my memory may not be what it used to be.

I'm not sure that I'd want to go back to searching from the most recent position rather than from the beginning, but if there were a way to do that, I'd want to know what it is. That's just the way that I am.

Last night I went through the 86 new Google results (43 for each site) and found 16 instances where a questionable N/A appeared. I clicked on the keyword in each instance, and the new search produced a number or numbers in each instance, including one 1, two 1+2s, three 4s and two 5+6s.

There were also 11 instances where I had expected to see two numbers and only one had appeared. I clicked on the keyword in each instance, and the new search produced two numbers in each instance, such as a 4 turning into a 4+17, a 6 turning into a 6+15, a 1 turning into a 1+23 and so forth.

Was the Google API playing games again, or what?

 

FYI FWIW: In addition to using the (excellent IMHO) DP Keyword tracker, I have been running a home-grown tool that also uses the Google API. I've seen similar bouncing around of results from time to time ... and yea, the API is butt slow. But given these known limitations on Google's end, I haven't seen any significant chances in the DP Keyword tracker results - I am using the Advanced Script BTW. Just another data point and/or my experience for 'ya.

Maybe if you are unhappy with the free tool, you can ask Shawn for a refund?!? ;-)

 

I like the free tool well enough. It's the unreliable Google results that disturb me. But they seem to be Google's fault.

 

First thanks for a great tool. I wish I had the time to build something this cool, but alas I like many other are too busy.

I am jumping in late here, but I noticed on or about Oct 14 2006 certain keywords I track stopping being ranked in DP. Like others I track my clients competitors keywords. I track about a dozen competitors and most of them did not lose any rank except for sites that did not rank well to begin... say >40 to 50 or so. I checked cetain keywords againt two google DC's, a midwest data center 72.14.203.104 and an east coast one 216.239.37.104 using the normal Google web interface and the keywords are there in a better position that before Oct 14.

I could go on on how you get what you pay for, but that would likely fall on deaf ears.

 

Google API doesn't count as query when searching on google , It uses is matrix that based on DPS.