This morning Google turned off some of the less used mechanisms for obtaining search results.  The search result scraper Scroogle.com is temporarily unable to provide search results.  The site used to be a useful tool to get search results without any warping due to location and user info.  A quick check of the SEO tool Rank Checker shows that search engine rankings are not provided for the Google column anymore.  There is no possibility that this is a coincidence.

I can only speak for ELW, but I hope that the world sees this for what it is.  Google only wants you to use their services when they control the medium.  This makes some sense if they were losing money from scrapers, but we know that isn’t true.  This truly is an act of aggression against professional SEO firms everywhere.  Don’t get me wrong, ELW has not been inconvenienced at all because our research doesn’t rely on the same back doors as Scroogle and rank checker.  Maybe this is a good thing, and no complaints are necessary?

There is much more to this outage than meets the eye.  I’ll save the real conspiracy theories for our paying customers!  More to come.