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Thomas Brunt
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Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 7/30/2004 11:41:44
This is probably not news to many of you, but I didn't know about it until quite recently. WebPosition Gold -- a search engine optimization/submission/reporting software solution company that has seen more than a little bad press -- was acquired by NetIQ back in April of this year. NetIQ is a major Net player. Among their many sophisticated products is Webtrends -- a very well respected Web statistics solution. Webtrends has been one of the top brands in its field for as long as I can remember.
My first experience with Webposition Gold came when I started OutFront. I used that software to analyze my pages and to produce search engine reports. I had read articles warning not to use the automatic submission and page generation features. I steered clear of those, but I found the analysis and reporting features to be quite effective and educational. My interest in search engine scores gradually waned over the first year OutFront was online. I stopped using the product mainly because I was busy and more interested with other aspects of my site. That was long before I ever tried to make a living from OutFront.
My next experience with webposition was as an affiliate. I was then trying very hard to make a living from OutFront. I'm not big on affiliate deals, but that offer was one of the most successful ones I've worked with. I never emphasized the offer as much as I could have mainly because of my concerns regarding the site submission and page generation features of the product.
My last experience with Webposition was on these forums. There was a very interesting thread with many negative comments about apparently true life stories where sites had gotten blackballed by search engines as a direct result of using webposition Gold. The company actually discovered the thread in these forums and a representative of the company spent quite a bit of time here arguing webposition's side of the case. She did a good job, but her opposition was more convincing -- at least to me.
It's a very long thread. There were many posts in favor of WebPostion Gold. The main point against the software was this one.
http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/m_94978/mpage_2/tm.htm#104570
In the end, I became so uncomfortable with Webposition's reputation that I took down my ads for it even though they were quite profitable.
Here's the thing.
It feels to me as though the Webposition reputation issue is either gone or going away soon now that NetIQ owns it. Does anyone here disagree with that? If so, why?
Here's some info about the acquisition.
http://www.webposition.com/pr-wpg-netiq.htm
I look on the Webposition site, and I still see them touting page generation, and automatic submission. Did they fix the problems with those features? Surely NetIQ cannot be unaware of the bad press those features have generated?
t
< Message edited by Thomas Brunt -- 7/30/2004 12:25:49 >
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Reflect
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 7/30/2004 14:13:21
quote:
It feels to me as though the Webposition reputation issue is either gone or going away soon now that NetIQ owns it.
What makes you feel this or think this?
Google's TOS has not changed. Automated queries are still taboo according to the TOS.
"No Automated Querying
You may not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system without express permission in advance from Google. Note that "sending automated queries" includes, among other things:"
Found here...
http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html
I would need some very well documented tests provided by a non paid third party before I would consider it.
quote:
Surely NetIQ cannot be unaware of the bad press those features have generated?
Just because the product has a new spin doctor does not change things in my mind.
IMHO,
Brian
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Thomas Brunt
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 7/30/2004 15:05:50
I just don't think NetIQ is the kind of company that would put out a bad product.
t
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powersitedesign
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 7/31/2004 1:50:42
I recently purchased another web development firm who was performing SEO work in-house for approximately 50 clients or so, and when we finalized the deal and was transferring everything over I was surprised to learn about their SEO Program, I was shocked to see that they had been using WebPosition Gold all along... I had owned WPG for several years, and like you Thomas, our crew had only really used a couple of the components because we were "scared" to do auto-submissions to Google, etc.
I can honestly say that the sites that they have been submitting using WPG have honestly been doing just as well or better than some of the sites that we have been doing SEO work on through Outsourced Partnerships.
I went online and transferred my license of WPG to another system in our office so that one of our technicians could take over all of the SEO work for our new clients, and about two days later I received an email from them and I started a dialogue w/ one of their reps, and he encouraged me to download their new Version3 to take a look and to provide them w/ some feedback, so I did and trust me, it is phenomenal. The integration w/ webtrends is just the tip of the iceberg, there are a lot of enhancements in this new version.
I am still unsure as to how they are going to pull it off w/ Google and others, but I have to admit that I am following their new product development very closely also... Plus w/ about 50 clients or so using the WPG program right now, I can honestly say that we are seeing them climb, even in Google.
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Thomas Brunt
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 7/31/2004 13:22:39
Maybe NetIQ believes that it is not possible for Google or any other search engine to tell the difference between an automated query and a hand submitted query?
It seems as though that would be the key to the whole strategy. No?
t
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powersitedesign
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 7/31/2004 13:47:31
I would think that it would have to be the key to their strategy, and they might know something we don't. 
We are going to be submitting a couple of new sites using WPG3 this next week, and I will let you know the process and how it works, I also do know that if you are nervous about submitting to Google w/ software, you can check it off of the list when you are setting everything up in WPG also, or at least that is what I am told.
Don't get me wrong though, our sites that we are outsourcing to another company are still doing slightly better across the board in most cases.
Thanks,
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Thomas Brunt
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 8/2/2004 13:43:33
I will be interested to know your results. :)
t
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powersitedesign
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 9/13/2004 23:33:15
Thomas - Sorry to take so long to get back to you on the WPG software we have been using internally but I wanted to let you know what my take is on it after our guys have been "stress testing it for a while".
We had three sites that were started at about the same time using WPG, two of them had a fair number of reciprocal links to them in the engines already and one didn't at all. Now get this... ha.
The one w/ no links to it at all and starting from scratch has been seeing extraordinary results across the board, even Google, imagine that, and here is where it gets weird, one of the sites that has about 15 sites w/ a Google PR of 6 or higher linking to it is doing well, and one that has about the same numbers, cannot be found. ha. All three are being submitted w/in an hour or two of one another and have similiar variables across the board, (no css, 30 keywords, similar descriptions, etc. They are all three in Real Estate Business or I would post their web addresses on here.
I guess my conclusion is that the jury is still out... Sorry, I wish I knew more, but I will be happy to report into you when we learn more.
Thanks,
Cotton
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Reflect
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 9/14/2004 7:47:36
quote:
The one w/ no links to it at all and starting from scratch has been seeing extraordinary results across the board, even Google, imagine that, and here is where it gets weird, one of the sites that has about 15 sites w/ a Google PR of 6 or higher linking to it is doing well, and one that has about the same numbers, cannot be found. ha. All three are being submitted w/in an hour or two of one another and have similiar variables across the board, (no css, 30 keywords, similar descriptions, etc. They are all three in Real Estate Business or I would post their web addresses on here.
This is a good test base but I think there are more variables than what you have stated that need to be considered.
Are all three sites in the same range on the third octet for IP? Are they running shared/dynamic IP or is IP dedicated? What kind of internal linking is happening? Are they out of the sandbox yet? What kind of backlinks? On backlinks what genre are the sites linking to each? Are they running on a shared server or running on a dedicated server per site?
These are just a few of the variables that I think would give or take weight on the ranking factor for SERPs that was not mentioned. There are more but it's early here.
I am not trying to be negative. Just trying to flesh out the details.
Take care,
Brian
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Mojo
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 9/23/2004 23:50:40
I don't recall WPG being specifically called out before.... so it may be a new addition.
"Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google."
Found on their guidlines page: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
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Anthony Parsons
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 9/26/2004 4:29:58
Hi all....What Mojo here has stated, being that, yes, Google does pick WPG out of the bunch because it utilises certain specifics when it modifies a page. AltaVista have already done it, and the others are moving on it, that these specifics are being crawled, identified and penalized accordingly for the use of such programs to manipulate the rankings. Whilst WebTrends analysis is great, along with its comparison, Click Tracks, the integration of WebTrends into WPG is nothing more of a selling point IMO to attempt to recapture the market they have lost through bad PR. If SEO's are using it, then they aren't real quality SEO's. The extent of WPG does not cover half the issues concerning a true optimization effort.
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powersitedesign
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 11/9/2004 18:22:27
Hi Thomas -
Just wanted to fill you in on how the sites we are attempting to position in the engines using WPG are doing. They have maintained their positions so far and just out of being a chicken, we decided to manually submit to Google a few weeks ago and other than that we still like it. (It only takes a second to do the manual submissions and I think that we are going to keep doing them that way and stay in compliance with their submission guidelines.) Just wanted to keep you current on our field tests.
Also, all sites are on the same server w/ the same ip address / shared hosting / and have the same amount of pages, etc. including the ones that we are doing in-house using our ther services.
Also, we have one site that we are monitoring that our client has signed up for Microsoft Submit Pro and it is doing well, but when we were using the service to "make the page ready'' we noticed that they recommend a different approach to keywords, etc. than we have learned. The site is not performing as fast as the pages that we are using WPG on though.
Thanks,
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Thomas Brunt
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 11/10/2004 11:32:39
Thanks for this info!
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BigBlue
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 11/10/2004 14:46:54
I've used Web Position Gold in the past (need to dust it off and look at it again) and I don't see a major problem with it. The resources that a program like WPG consumes when doing an automated query is miniscule in the big scheme of things.
This rank checking feature of WPG is one of the more useful features of the program, and quite frankly, I don't see how Google (or anyone else) could possibly blacklist your site for using this. The rank check feature is based on keywords, not a website. They might blacklist your IP address, but even that seems like a stretch. Has this ever really happened to anyone?
I was at a WebTrends seminar in LA a few weeks ago, and they briefly discussed WebPosition Gold. They agreed that the search engines don't like products like WPG, but oh well. In their view, as long as people are playing fair (rather than trying to artificially inflate ranking for clearly irrelevant but high-paying keywords), WPG is just another handy tool. I tend to agree.
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Reflect
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RE: Webtrends, Web Postion Gold, and NetIQ - 3/8/2005 15:34:45
Hello,
I just came across this today, stragiht from GoogleGuy...
"Recently, we've started to improve the software, and it can also detect lots of things like rank checking and other automatic queries to Google. Of course, we don't show the message to everybody that comes onto our radar, but our new software looks pretty good at detecting programmatic queries. If you're using WebPosition or other software that sends queries to Google from a program, I'm not surprised if you're going over a threshold where your queries are on the radar."
This snippet comes from thread...
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/28417.htm
Message #5.
Guess the fat lady has sung.
Take care,
Brian
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