If you have attempted to check your Google rankings recently, and you are using one of many automated tools to do so, you probably have encountered a problem getting your ranking information.
It appears that Google has begun to crack down on bulk checking of SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions). This decision has affected a couple of the programs that I use to produce client reporting, which would not be an issue if you were checking a few rankings. When you are checking several hundred though, it creates quite a problem.
Yahoo and Bing are still allowing checks of this nature, so you can continue to use your software for checking positions in those search engines. There are a couple of options out there where it appears that they have an API that allows Google ranking checking, but the number of checks allowed are limited, and the price is pretty high for small agencies, and businesses.
What can be done is manual checking of course, but that eats up lots of time.
I will keep abreast of this situation and let you know what eventually shakes out. My cynical assumption is that Google is going to work out another way to monetize on their information, and SEOs and businesses will figure out how to adapt.
