Google has updated its webmaster information area. I first noticed this on the 4th of June, though it may have been there a while.
Few points of my own clarification – the indented parts are quoted from Google, the rest are my own.
Fiction: Automated “rank checking” programs are a good way for webmasters to save time and measure their online presence.
Fact:
Automated rank checking programs violate Google’s Terms of Service. They use server resources that should be spent on answering user requests. We strongly request that you not use rank checking programs to check your position on Google.
My read-between-the-lines interpretation is that site like lilengine.com that use the Google API to access the Google database one time are okay. But automated software that do repeated queries are not.
Fiction: A website will be removed from Google’s index if it’s “over-submitted.”
Fact:
We don’t require submission nor do we penalize sites for “over-submission.” You’re free to submit as often as you wish. However, given the nature of our inclusion process, your time is better spent improving the content and links of your site.
To me – and this is of course, as always, my own opinion, not Google’s – that reads, why stand in line in a horse and carriage when there’s a super highway to being indexed?
What’s that super highway? As I reference in my earliest book on Google, my current books on blogs and search engines, and in several articles, as well as in various spots on the blog, there’s absolutely no need to stand in line submitting when your site, in the right place, at the right time, can bump into the Google web robot when it’s on its continous hunt for information.
Can you pinpoint, with 100% accuracy, where Google’s spider will be? Course not. But you can make an educated guess with the information Google volunteers to you.
I haven’t submitted any site to Google in nearly two years. And yet, scroll down to the bottom of my home page and see my results for yourself.
More on Google’s updated Webmaster reference area in a moment.
