SERPs: Google Scrapers

Question

Hello all,

How do sites that offer SERP tracking work?

I mean, under the Google ToS - scraping is forbidden on search results.

I have seen huge sites, I won't name any, offer SERP tracking services (paid) and these guys have not been spotted or Google choses to ignore them! Why?

Clearly not a programming question, hopefully its ok as a wiki.

Thanks all

Answer 1

Some years ago Google made available their SERPs via a SOAP API.

Nonetheless, companies that offer SERP tracking are having lots of trouble, they basically have lots of cheap machines to browser SERPs for them, it makes it look like they are regular users.