What's google's position on programmatically querying pagerank?

Question

Is there a public API for programmatically querying pagerank? If so, for what level of volumes would it be permitted for a service to use it?

Answer 1

This is from google guideline page http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

"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"

So I guess that is a no.

But I found this: http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/PageRank/ that you could try. I do not know if it is "legal".

Answer 2

From my Experience, It's OK to query page-rank as long as you do it with 1 second intervals, otherwise Google blocks you IP address after a few queries. if you're using .net there is library to help query page-rank anagrammatically , you can find it here.

Answer 3

Just tried a PageRank tool, and the answer from Google is clear :

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?&answer=86640&hl=en

That says :

"If you tried the steps above and haven't resolved the issue, it's very likely that a user or a computer in your network is sending automated traffic to Google. Your network administrator may be able to locate and shut down the source of the automated traffic; feel free to refer them to this page. Sending automated queries of any sort to Google is against our Terms of Service. This includes, among other things, the following activities:

• Using any software that sends queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks on Google for various queries"

So the answer is NO : Google forbids and blocks those kind of queries !