Rank Tracker User Manual
WebSite Auditor User Manual
SEO SpyGlass User Manual
LinkAssistant User Manual
- Rank Tracker User Manual
- WebSite Auditor User Manual
- SEO SpyGlass User Manual
- LinkAssistant User Manual
Search Safety Settings
When scanning a website or updating ranking factors WebSite Auditor is using the IP address of the computer, on which it has been installed. In some cases, this may cause specific issues when updating external ranking factors, such as Google Cache Date, HTML/CSS validation errors and other factors which are collected from the external services.
For this reason, all SEO Powersuite tools have been equipped with a set of search safety settings that can help you minimize the risk of becoming detected and blocked by different search engines and other services.
To protect your IP from getting blocked for excessive queries, make sure you enable 'Show Captcha…' options under Preferences > Search Safety Settings > Captcha Settings. To prove the queries are not automated, you shouldn't skip any of the captchas during the search.
To minimize the number of captchas that pop up, you can reasonably limit the number of queries sent, and make them look more human-like.
In 'Preferences > Search Safety Settings > Human Emulation' you can set the program to visit the search engine's homepage, and enable random pauses between making queries, which emulates natural human behavior.
- Commonly, we recommend to enable two first boxes and set the pauses between 3-8 seconds.
In 'Preferences > Search Safety Settings > User Agent' you can set a Specified User Agent if needed. By default, WebSite Auditor is rotating user agents and performs search queries using random ones.
- Unless you need a specific user agent for some kind of sensitive task, these options should remain unchecked.
- In Preferences > Misc. Global Settings you can limit the number of tasks WebSite Auditor will run simultaneously. By default, it's set to 5, but if you are trying to scan some sensitive server or try to update the Google Index factor for too many pages at once, you can set the Number of Tasks to 1-2.
- Captcha Skipping Delay should be set 60 seconds. Within this time captchas tend to expire on search engines' side, and resolving a timed-out captcha makes no difference.
- Decide on whether you need Cache feature (to store the results in cache for 23 hours), or not.
Using proxy rotation
One of the solutions to avoid blocks from Google and other services when updating page ranking factors is to hide your IP address behind a proxy.
With the Proxy Rotation feature on, the program will connect to search engines through the proxies instead of your IP and distribute the requests between them to keep your checks uninterrupted.
This also allows you to speed up the workflow, as you can set higher number of simultaneous tasks and update multiple projects quickly.
To start using proxies, go to Preferences > Search Safety Settings > Proxy Rotation and enable it. You can Add the proxies by one, or Import them in bulk (the wizard will show the required format of the proxies list).
Once the proxies are imported, you can Select any of them to be used, and Check their status anytime.
- Check with the proxy provider on the required authentication settings: some proxies require username and password, others require your IP being whitelisted on the provider's side.
- Check the proxies occasionally and make sure to only use Alive ones. Dead proxies and proxies with poor Response Time should be removed or replaced.
- Avoid using any free shared proxies (WebSite Auditor may rotate them endlessly, unable to find any appropriate proxy for a task). Keep the 'Look for new proxies…' option disabled.
- Enable the option to 'Use direct connection If no proxies are available'.
If you'd like WebSite Auditor to use a proxy instead of your IP when it performs the tasks requiring direct connection (connecting to your Google Analytics accounts or crawling a website under a different IP address), set up a proxy under Preferences > Proxy Settings' We recommend to use the proxy with the best response time here.
- Enable the option to 'Use Proxy' and enter proxy’s address and port.
- Tick the 'Proxy requires authentication' box if applicable, and enter your username and password.
- Check the proxy to make sure it is working properly.
- Once the proxies are set up, you can increase the Number of Simultaneous Tasks respectively: we recommend to set it three times less than the number of proxies you have, so that each task would have backup proxies.
- To prevent the proxies from getting timed-out, increase the Request Timeout to 90 seconds.
- In case the proxies get compromised by the search engines, they may receive a captcha just as any IP, so keep the 'Show Captcha…' options enabled.
- Human Emulation delays are optional with the proxies, though they may minimize the risk of getting a captcha.
If you'd rather not resolve captchas manually, or if you need to leave the software running unattended, consider getting an anti-captcha key. You can get our SEO PowerSuite Anti-Captcha key here, and paste it under Preferences > Search Safety Settings > Captcha Settings - simply enable the Automatic Captcha Recognition and enter the key code.
The captchas will be resolved automatically in the background, keeping your proxies safe. With the reasonable number of tasks and moderate human emulation settings, even a key for 1K captchas may really last a while.
