28 replies to this topic

[digitalpoint]

Okay, thanks to querty for letting me know about the thread... I'll answer all the questions I can (hopefully I don't forget any)... hehe

blackpool - Easy way to add a keyword: add a keyword or phrase in the "Keyword" field and simply add the domain in the "URL" field (no need for http:// or www or anything else). Anything beyond just the domain itself is when you want to know specific pages. Then hit the "Add New Keywords" button. That should do it. If it's not working how you think it should, try entering "news" as your keyword and "cnn.com" as your URL. That should definitely give you a result.

While I can't speak for Google of course, I've never heard anything from anyone that would make me think using the Google API will hurt (or help) your rankings in any way. It's simply a way for Google to allow programatic access to their backend without violating their terms of service. There are many other uses for it beyond just tracking ranks. For example, someone could make a "search this site" function using Google as the backend. For an example of this, check the Tools section of our website... there is a free PHP script that is for just that purpose.

If you have a specific example of what's not working for you, let me know and I'll explain whatever it is...

awall19 - Glad you like... it's always fun to see lots of people using and liking the stuff I make.

querty - In regards to screenshots of the graphs, you can make the graphs as large as you want under "Edit Preferences" (well, I put a cap of 1000x1000, but if you need to print them, crank up the size.

Dyan - Google API keys should be instant. You get a confirmation email asking you to confirm your email, but once you do that, it should be instant. (The confirmation email should be instant as well.)

Hopefully that was everyone... if I missed anything, let me know.

- Shawn

[ultimateai]

Thanks Jill, good information. Dyan...I signed up and got my key immediately after responding to the email verification.

[Dragon]

Really cool tool DP - cant believe I haven't found it sooner !

[digitalpoint]

And hopefully DigitalPoint can stop by and give us a definitive answer, but the results that now say N/A used to (if I remember correctly) say 9999, which I guess would indicate that they were checking as far as 10,000.

Google only has the ability to show up to 1,000 deep (on the website, and also via the API). The 9,999 ranking is what was used for an "Unknown" ranking. But since it wasn't actually going that deep (it's not possible), it was causing some confusion, so that's why I changed it to simply display as "N/A".

The keyword tracker can technically search up to 1,000 deep (again, that's the limitation of Google), but users are limited to going 200 deep (and it defaults to 50), so they don't inadvertently tear through their 1,000 daily query limit and also to be nice on our servers... they are already pretty busy as it is (the keyword tracker got a dedicated server on December because of the required resources).

- Shawn

[suthra]

Hi Shawn, Iam using your service from your site www.digitalpoint.com.

Iam new to ranking using Google Api and iam confused of this. Upto how much pages will your script crawl to find the rank.

Like iam always willing to check my site within the first 15 pages in google.
So after reading several warnings in this forums, i stopped using softwares for google rank checking and then i came across your site and signedup with my API key and iam very much satisfied.
I would be grateful if you answer my doubt on this.

Regards.,
sarathy.s

[Mike Thies]

Well Either this tool is not accurate or Google is having an issue...

I tested this tool out with one of the sites I've been working on. The keywords used were "log homes", the domain is altaloghomes.com, the result provided was the old domain, altahome.com.

Now perhaps this is an issue with Google and not the tool, so let me explain a quick history of the site.

Until January the two domain names pointed to the same site. At the tail end of January / beginning of February we moved www.altaloghomes.com to a seperate IP and moved the site there, leaving the "We Have Moved!" page up at www.altahome.com.

Recently I setup 301 Redirects to point any traffic automatically from the old domain to the new.

[Jill]

That would have nothing to do with the tool. It can only see what Google shows.

Jill

[Mike Thies]

Why would it not be the tool? If it is supposed to report on the domain name that you type in, and it shows me a different domain name as my result?

[magician]

www.googlerankings.com/help.php => I have tried it

I clicked on the:
Determine Best Keywords

And the results are surprising!!!

the results of my website french version:

1. eacute
2. color

eacute is the ALT codes for é and in second color ???

[Mike Thies]

See now that is odd, when I did the "Determine Best Keywords" the most often used keywords listed for my site are 'arial', 'homes', 'color', 'right', 'floor'. 'Arial' is only used as part of the font code on the site, would that be what the search engines are seeing as well?

[digitalpoint]

Hi Shawn, Iam using your service from your site www.digitalpoint.com.

Iam new to ranking using Google Api and iam confused of this. Upto how much pages will your script crawl to find the rank.

Like iam always willing to check my site within the first 15 pages in google.
So after reading several warnings in this forums, i stopped using softwares for google rank checking and then i came across your site and signedup with my API key and iam very much satisfied.
I would be grateful if you answer my doubt on this.

It will go as deep as you define under "Edit Preferences" (it defaults to 50 positions deep). If you want it to go 15 pages deep, set it to check the first 150 positions.

Well Either this tool is not accurate or Google is having an issue...

I tested this tool out with one of the sites I've been working on. The keywords used were "log homes", the domain is altaloghomes.com, the result provided was the old domain, altahome.com.

Now perhaps this is an issue with Google and not the tool, so let me explain a quick history of the site.

Until January the two domain names pointed to the same site. At the tail end of January / beginning of February we moved www.altaloghomes.com to a seperate IP and moved the site there, leaving the "We Have Moved!" page up at www.altahome.com.

Recently I setup 301 Redirects to point any traffic automatically from the old domain to the new.

Well so far, I have not seen any issues that were on our end (truthfully), as the API results are very easy to use and in a defined format.

But I did look into it a little bit for you. When I try it, it yields the following:

log homes - altaloghomes.com - N/A
log homes - altahome.com - 180

So using the API I don't see the first one in the top 200. And I see the 2nd one at position 180. I checked the actual results that the 2nd item returned via the API and the title and URL are:

#180:
Alta Log Homes Has Moved!
http://www.altahome.com/

Which is what I also see when searching Google manually (I actually see it at 179, but it's just data center flux), and I don't see the first one in the top 200.

That part aside, you aren't using a 301 (or even a 302) redirect on the old site, you are using a META refresh which is about the worst type you can use, as Google will not follow it.

- Shawn

[Mike Thies]

Well so far, I have not seen any issues that were on our end (truthfully), as the API results are very easy to use and in a defined format.

Actually I was originall referring to the tool that was first posted in this thread sorry for not specifying, the www.googlerankings.com tool.

That part aside, you aren't using a 301 (or even a 302) redirect on the old site, you are using a META refresh which is about the worst type you can use, as Google will not follow it.

I believe I am using a 301 redirect, the only redirection I setup was in the .htaccess file, now granted I'm new to this so perhaps I read the wrong article on setting it up.

[qwerty]

There's a 403 (forbidden) on that URL, with a meta refresh redirect set at 5 seconds.

[Mike Thies]

Well look at that, the old redirection was never deleted correctly, last time I trust a cgi-script to do what its told . Thats fixed Thanks for pointing out that which i was blind to

Now Hopefully Google will start lookin at the real site correctly. I still find it wierd that the tools are returning a different domain name when I type www.altaloghomes.com into the tool as a url and it returns www.altahome.com, they're different IP's, it'd be liking putting www.microsoft.com in and getting www.apple.com's ranking as a result.