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I made a little script that scrapes Google results so I could check my site’s keyword positions in Google. It works great, but I only recently found out that what I’m doing is against Google’s TOS.

However, there are tools out there (such as the DigitalPoint tracker tool) that have tons of users and must not be violating Google’s TOS since Google could easily identify and shut them down. I’m wondering, how I can scrape Google search results without violating the TOS?

I found the JSON/Atom Custom Search API which appears to be a paid service for over 100 queries/day. Would using this API, or another Google API, allow me to use my tool without violating Google’s TOS?