I've read in the Google guidelines (http://www.google.co.uk/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769&hl=en) that Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Goldâ„¢ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google. Does this means a website could get seriously punnished by Google using programs like this? (there are several others than Webposition) If so: Doesn't this opens a serious gap to ban your competitors by using tools like this with their domain? Are there tools available wich don't use bulk querries?
Just because they say they "don't recommend" using software like that does not mean that they "punish". You are making a real leap in logic here. Not recommending and penalizing are two different things. And for the very reason you brought up about sabotaging a competitor's domain is a primary reason that they DON'T penalize for this. If they did, then they would open up a Pandora's box of abusive black hat SEO. If you want to get some solid info, then ask your question at the Google webmaster forum where an actual Google employee can respond to your query. You're making a huge assumption here, and to post something as fact in the title of your post is just reckless.
"wantmomoney" is correct. you are not penalised for that google jus dnt recommend you using those tools but it dsnt mean that they wll punish you
The thing is, why Google writes it in the guidelines then? Reading several forums the main conclusion is: Nobody knows for sure what Google exactly does when they find out a webmaster is using a tool like this. I personally believe this would be an explanation for all those websites which suddenly got banned, without any black hat on them. I'll try to explain my point: I think Google is against any form of SEO (except the SEO Google is describing in their guidelines, so Google knows what the site is about) because SEO doesn’t mean better content. It only means that sites with less good content will be found before sites with better content by manipulating their algorithm. The use of automated ranking checker tools is extremely useful to find out which variables are important for a better ranking for a certain page. Google can’t manually check every page for the use of SEO but they can extend their algorithm to recognize the use of SEO. When someone is constantly checking hundreds of keywords, thus trying to optimize there pages, some alarm bells will go off. This is because it is against everything Google stands for; Google wants to deliver the best page related to the keyword, not the best optimized page. This is just a thought, and I would be happy to read some other views on this one.
I’ve forgot one thing, what after they recognized the use of tools like this? If they would just ban everyone using this tool it certainly would open a gap to get any competing site banned. There are solutions for that, since there is lots of proof that a certain website is using “forbidden†SEO they could investigate that site a bit harder (this costs more time, that’s why they don’t check every page for this), and when it is clear that site is using lots of SEO they could ban or punish it, and it doesn’t matter whose site it is because any site using SEO should be banned or at least punished from their point of view. So I think this goes lots further than only be against using tools, they want to deliver the best pages, not the best optimized pages. So why do they write it in their webmaster guidelines then? Well, there are people just using this tool because it is handy. And since Google doesn’t have time to make a deeper check of every site they give a warning that the use of tools like this will let some alarm bells go off which. Also the fact that Google wants to be as transparent as possible could be a good reason.
If you use automated tools like that you may, for a short period of time, be stopped from searching and get an error message that says soemthing like "we have detected that your searches may be automated"...something like that I can't remember the exact wording. You get it sometimes when you're just searching a lot for links or something 'manuually' If you've never seen it, you just haven't been searching enough
I am using a "tool like this" since 6 years now and never had a problem with rankings of those websites I'm using the tool for. But - to make it clear, I use it with an old Google search api, that you can't get anymore. So one thing seems clear; they know exactly what I'm doing and how often I'm diong it. Can't confirm that they penalize for this. I think the main reason they don't want this tools to be used is their bandwidth and servers occupation by robots that don't convert into customers.