What is Safe Query Mode and how does it work?

Almost any SEO check implies gathering the data from different sources: search engines, online databases, third-party services, or social networks. All of those tend to monitor the load on their servers - and when the requests from a certain IP are excessive or seem automated, they may show captchas or temporarily block the IP. Upon using your direct IP, the checks may slow down or get interrupted due to that.

With most services, the problem is being solved at extra cost - by using your paid private proxies to distribute the requests across multiple IPs, or by paying for side captcha-solving services (anti-captcha keys).

SEO PowerSuite's Safe Query Mode helps you protect your IP and stay out of search engines' radars, letting your checks run uninterrupted and captcha-free.

The mode is available to all paid SEO PowerSuite users at no extra cost (not available in the Free version though).

How does the Safe Query Mode work?

The mechanism behind the mode is simple: throughout your checks, the requests get processed on our end. The checks run through our private dedicated servers, preventing any temp blocks and keeping your IP uncompromised.

What does the Safe Query Mode cover?

The checks can be broadly divided into two groups, by the kind of requests that are being sent: simple or advanced.

The Safe Query Mode covers the simple kind of checks now.

Simple queries do not involve any additional search parameters / advanced search operators and allow you to:

Check Rankings in Google and Yahoo!
Get Competitor suggestions in RankTracker
Check Keyword Difficulty
Harvest and analyze Competitors for Page Audit / Content Analysis in WebSite Auditor
Search for Prospects in LinkAssistant (except for the Custom Search method that involves using advanced search operators)

Advanced queries imply using additional search parameters / advanced search operators. Search engines have always been extra-sensitive to such types of requests and tend to block those diligently when they go excessive.

For that reason, the Safe Query Mode doesn't cover the following (advanced) tasks:

In Rank Tracker:

Checking Rankings in Yandex, Mail.ru, DuckDuckGo and Wp.pl search engines
Collecting keyword Competition from search engines
Getting keyword ideas from Search Engines with the Auto-Complete, Related Searches, and Related Questions methods
Getting keyword ideas from the TF-IDF Explorer
Checking Indexation in Search Engines (in Domain Strength)

* in RankTracker, the Safe Query Mode is not compatible with the Use Minimum Number of Queries rank checking mode (Successive Search only).

In WebSite Auditor:

Checking page's Cache Date in SE
Checking W3C Errors
Checking Indexation in Search Engines (in Domain Strength)

In SEO SpyGlass:

Checking backlink's Cache Date in SE (involved in the calculation of Penalty Risk)
Checking Indexation in Search Engines (in Domain Strength)

In LinkAssistant:

Searching for Prospects using the Custom Search method
Checking backlinks page's Cache Date in SE
Checking prospect's Indexed Pages in SE
Checking Indexation in Search Engines (in Domain Strength)

The Safe Query More is constantly being improved and developed to cover more and more kinds of tasks gradually!

How to enable the Safe Query Mode?

If you are using a paid version (either Professional or Enterprise), the Safe Query Mode is enabled by default - no extra actions needed.

Still, you can always find it under Preferences > Search Safety Settings > Safe Query Mode:

To make sure the mode is not interrupted by anything else in the setup, check this guide.

To successfully run the tasks that are not covered by the mode, go to Preferences > Search Safety Settings > CAPTCHA Settings and make sure that you have both Show Captcha... options (and, optionally, automatic CAPTCHA Recognition) enabled:

* no worries: you still won't see captchas throughout the tasks that are covered by the mode, and your Anti-Captcha key won't be spent on those.