Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that he finds it awkward when he reads articles and how-to guides on techniques on breaking Google's terms of service (TOS) and their webmaster guidelines. He replied to an article written on Search Engine Journal about scraping Google's search results.
Yes, scraping Google's search results is 100% against their terms of service but historically, Google has looked the other way with this. They do have some preventative measures to reduce some really bad scraping but again, there are tons of tools that continue to do this and find ways around it.
Here is John's tweet:
Is it kinda awkward that you're publishing a guide on how to break our terms of service & webmaster guidelines? 🤔
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) September 5, 2018
The reason I am covering it is because it is funny and also is practical, this is the industry. I should also note, the conversation on Twitter that followed John's response is pretty funny.
Here are some excerpts from it:
tbh John, you tweeting this has actually made me read an article on SEJ for the first time in years. Streisand effect!
— Tom Roberts (@tjproberts) September 5, 2018
Will you have a major algorithm update now? You will, won't you? Damn it!
— Debarghya Chanda (@debuc90) September 6, 2018
Note to @USSenate: disallow anti-scraping terms as a way to foster competition and innovation in the search engine market...
— Tom Nabielec (@tnabielec) September 5, 2018
To be honest, if my SEJ article didn't go on to cause debate in the highest echelons of US government I'd be really disappointed. #AimHigh
— Rory Truesdale (@RoryT11) September 5, 2018
It’s kinda odd that Google wants peoples personal information from MasterCard
— TigerSEO (@TigerSEOMktg) September 6, 2018
Forum discussion at Twitter.
