YouTube: AI TPT Store Shutdown? | TPT Seller Tip E96
Are automated scripts safe to use on TPT?
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Introduction
Hey TPT Sellers. Stores are getting shut down – maybe because of AI – and now sellers are questioning everything. Are automated scripts safe? What about uploading a bunch of products at one time? What about TPT seller tools? Are stores getting shut down for using AI? How much AI? And I think before we decide what’s risky, we need to figure out what tools actually do.
Because saying, “I heard automated scripts might be a problem, so I’m never using scripts again,” is a little bit like saying, “Some clothes might violate the school dress code, so I’m not going to wear clothes again.” Wait. What? That doesn’t make sense.
Hi, my name is Mike Fuchigami and I’m the host of the SEOTpreneur YouTube community. In this video, we’re going to look at three things. First, what is an automated script? Second, what do TPT’s rules actually say, and why that still doesn’t answer every question. And third, I’m going to give you a checklist to help you understand how different tools work so you can decide what’s right for your business.
I’m not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Always consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction for legal advice. As business owners, we make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time. And if we learn something new, it’s okay to pivot!
1. What’s an automated script?
So first, what’s a script? A script is basically code that tells a computer to do something. And an automated script just means that some part of that job can happen without you.
That’s a really broad definition. And that’s part of the problem. The word “script” is kind of like the word “clothing.” They both describe large categories of things. Shorts are clothing. A heavy winter jacket is clothing. A T-shirt is clothing.
Now imagine a school has a dress code and says you’re not allowed to wear shirts with vulgar language. Could someone get expelled because they’re wearing a shirt that advocated extreme hate? Maybe. But we wouldn’t say, “Okay. Clothes are dangerous. I’m never wearing clothes again.”
The problem isn’t clothing. It’s more nuanced than that. The word clothing is too broad of an idea to say clothing is good or bad. Just because you wear clothes or use scripts doesn’t mean you’re doing something bad. The real issue is you need to know what you’re actually wearing or doing.
Scripts are the same. The specific context really matters here. One script might analyze a CSV file. Another might go to a website and download information. Another might sit inside your browser and watch what happens. Or it might request information for you.
Automation adds another layer. Maybe you knit a sweater by hand, or maybe a machine makes the whole thing. The finished sweater can look the same. Software is similar. Maybe you wrote the script, bought it, had someone build it, or AI wrote it. How it was made doesn’t necessarily tell you what it does.
And I think this is where some of the AI conversation is getting mixed together. If you ask AI to help write a TPT product description, and then you manually copy and paste that description into TPT, that’s one workflow. If you give an AI agent access to your browser and tell it to go into TPT and change all of your product descriptions for you, that’s a different workflow. Both involve AI. But what’s actually happening on TPT is very different.
So I don’t think the question is, “Was AI involved?” I think the real question might be what is this particular tool doing, and where is it doing it? Because scripts can be harmless, but they can also be harmful. Just like how clothing can be harmless or harmful.
A script could be designed with malicious intent. If you wanted to shut down a website, you could try to overload it with a million pageviews at the same time to slow down or disrupt the service. On the other hand, a script could be designed to be helpful but still accidentally cause a problem.
Let’s go back to the school dress code. Some schools have rules around certain colors because those colors can be associated with gangs. Imagine I put on a plain red T-shirt. I’m not in a gang. I just like my red shirt. At home, there’s no problem.
But if I walk into a particular school where that clothing is prohibited because of the problems that school is dealing with, a red shirt might become an issue. I wasn’t trying to cause a problem. The shirt wasn’t designed to be harmful. I wasn’t wearing it with harmful intent. But context matters.
The same thing can happen with software. Maybe I ask AI to go to TPT and figure out where my products rank for different keywords. I’m not trying to overload TPT. I’m trying to run my business. But the fact that I have a good reason for doing something doesn’t automatically tell me what effect my tool is having on somebody else’s website.
Sometimes the problem only appears at scale. One student comes to school with a little perfume on their shirt. Maybe you barely notice. Now imagine a thousand students do it. Each person used a little, but collectively the whole school smells like perfume and some people may have a hard time with scents.
One TPT seller asking AI to visit the TPT website might create almost no noticeable load. But what happens when hundreds or thousands of TPT sellers have AI agents checking rankings, loading search pages, collecting keywords, and doing other repetitive tasks?
Every individual seller might say, “I’m barely doing anything.” And individually, they might be right. But TPT doesn’t experience each seller in isolation. Their servers experience all of that activity together. Bottom line: when someone says, “I heard automated scripts might be a problem, so I’m never going to use scripts again,” I think we need to slow down. Because “script” is like the word clothing. It doesn’t tell us enough. What script? What does it actually do? Where is it doing it? And what effect could that have? If you learned something new, can you please like the video because It encourages me to make more content like this one.
2. What do TPT’s rules say about automated scripts?
Now let’s look at TPT’s dress code. I found a section in its Community Guidelines called “Don’t interfere with our Services. ” I’m not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. You’ll have to do your own due diligence to see whats in TPT’s policies. But, let’s have a peek and wonder…
“Dont interfere with our services. Don’t attempt to gain unauthorized access to our computer systems or engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality, interferes with the performance, or impairs the functionality of our Services. Don’t use any automated means such as bots, spiders, or crawlers to download or otherwise obtain data from our services. “
I wonder why this automated means clause is in a section called don’t interfere with our services. I wonder if manual methods to download or otherwise obtain data from TPT would be okay? I wonder if going to TPT, highlighting text and copying that information into a Google Doc is okay? What if a company hired a hundred human VAs to spend all day going to TPT to copy paste information. Would that be okay? I wonder if TPT could tell the difference between one hundred human VAs or one automated bot – and does that matter?
In some corners of TPT land, we have pockets of people going on an AI witch hunt. And we have people who want to use AI ethically and responsibly in their business but don’t want to admit how they use AI or how much they use AI because, well, there are some people on an AI witch hunt.
Although we might want to argue our interpretation of TPT policies, it doesn’t matter. To be clear, it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what TPT thinks. (Actually, I wonder if it only matters what TPT does, but that’s another video.) TPT’s terms of service says they can shut down anyone’s account at any time without warning for no reason at all. But to be fair, TPT sellers can also shut down their account at any time without warning for no reason at all. Whether we’re talking about AI, or automated scripts, or a school dress code, I think we need to separate five different things.
Layer one is the written rule. That’s the school dress code. We can go read it. We might wish the dress code was more specific. We might want TPT to publish a list that says this is okay and this isn’t. This many requests is okay, and this isn’t. We don’t have that. But even if TPT gave us more examples, technology is going to keep evolving. So the written rule is only layer one.
Layer two is what you actually wore to school. In TPT land, what did the seller, the tool, or the store actually do? Maybe the tool automatically downloaded information. Maybe the seller uploaded a huge number of products. Maybe a large company had a team of human VAs doing the work. Maybe the products themselves had obvious errors. These are different facts. And even if we know what happened that still doesn’t tell us what TPT cared about.
Layer three is how the store came to TPT’s attention. One pathway is TPT’s own systems. In August 2026, Chalkbeat reported that IXL CEO Paul Mishkin said TPT uses algorithmic tools to identify and demote stores associated with low-quality AI-generated content. A second pathway is the community: a teacher buyer or TPT seller reports something. A third pathway is public attention: a Facebook discussion or news article puts a store on somebody’s radar.
Layer four is What did TPT actually decide was actionable? And what information did they use to make that decision? Only Team TPT knows the real answer. Maybe a written rule talks about automated access but the real concern is protecting TPT’s servers from getting overloaded. If that were the concern, maybe TPT looks at request volume. Maybe it looks at the number of products edited in a day. Maybe it looks at repetitive activity. Humans can do repetitive tasks that look very similar to bot-like behaviour so this is where things get interesting.
Layer five is What story do we hear afterward? Someone posts online: “I’m an experienced teacher. I’m not an AI store. TPT shut down my store in this latest wave against AI slop” and then people start wondering. Are you using automated scripts? Is the way you’re using AI similar to the way I’m using AI? Could what happened to you happen to me? What do I need to stop doing so I don’t get shut down?
Saying a store got shut down for using AI is like saying, “Someone got suspended for wearing clothes.” Okay. What exactly were they wearing, and why did it matter? If you learned something new, can you please share the video?
3. TPT Seller Automated Script checklist
Here’s my TPT Seller Tool checklist. You can use it for AI prompts, scripts, or any tool you use. The goal is to move from “AI is bad” or “automated scripts are bad” to “what is this tool actually doing?” Here are three questions: Does this tool connect to TPT? If it does visit TPT, what does it do there? What do TPT’s rules say about that?
That second question is important because most TPT sellers aren’t software engineers. A developer can explain how a tool works, and that’s useful information, but it isn’t perfect. The developer could misunderstand something, the tool could change, or AI could generate code the developer doesn’t fully understand. So as we go through these examples, keep separating what we know from what we assume.
Example #1:
Here’s an example with Google Sheets – this is TPT Seller Tip 028 – My TPT Search Analytics Helper. I’m going to click here where it says “Go to the “My Search Analytics” tab on the TPT Seller dashboard. Now I’m going to change the time period to all time, and then I’m going to change the product from my entire store to just my reading bundle. Now if I scroll down, there’s a download button, so I’m going to click on that and download my keyword stats CSV.
So now I’m going to go back to my Google sheet tool, and upload my “Keyword Stats” data. If I click on the tab here in the footer called 2. Keyword: Sales, I can instantly see which keywords led to sales. It’s a quick way to see which keywords made me money. In the footer, if I click tab #3 Keywords: Missed Opportunities, I can quickly see which keywords led to traffic but not sales. And then I can try to figure out why.
Let’s use my tool checklist. Question one: does this tool connect to TPT? No. I had to go and manually download the CSV file from TPT. All of the automation is happening after I manually obtained the data. That’s an important distinction. Automation does not have to mean automation on TPT. Well, Mike, what if I’m using AI and not a google sheet tool? Great question.
Example #2.
Here’s an example using AI. At the bottom of my Google Sheet tool, there’s a tab with AI Prompt 1. So let’s click on that, let’s copy the blue prompt with better rules for TPT SEO, let’s go to ChatGPT. Make sure you’ve changed your privacy settings so you’re not training the next model of AI with your business secrets. (If you don’t know how to do that, leave a comment). I’m going to paste this prompt here. Change the thinking to extra high and hit enter. Whoa. Wait. How many times have we done that? We got a prompt from somewhere and just used it without really thinking about it.
This brings us to Question two: How do I know what a tool does? I could read the prompt. I could ask AI to explain what a prompt does before running it. I could watch a video like this one where the tool maker explains what the prompt does. In this case, the prompt is asking for five things. It’s asking for the product URL. Here’s the product. Let’s grab the URL, and I’ll paste it in the prompt.
Next it needs the TPT Search Analytics keyword CSV so I’ll upload that. Then it’s asking for the current product title so let’s copy and paste that and then it’s asking for the current product description so I”ll go and copy and paste that as well. Finally, it’s asking about my low-data keyword preference – I’m going to tell the prompt to be willing to speculate. Now let’s hit enter and AI is going to generate suggestions for a better title and better product description. While it’s thinking, let’s go through the TPT Seller Tool checklist.
Question one: Does this tool connect to TPT? Yes. In this case, I gave it my product URL, so ChatGPT servers are going to TPT.
Question two: If it does visit TPT, what does it actually do there? I assume ChatGPT is reading the information on the page.
Question three: What do TPT’s rules actually say about that? Well right now, I just had the ChatGPT bot go and get information from the TPT website. And TPT’s community guidelines state: “Don’t use any automated means such as bots… to … obtain data from our services.” Wait, what? Does that mean anytime we ask AI about a website, we’re using an automated means to obtain data from the website? I’m not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. You have to make your own determination about what’s right for your business. But Mike, how do I know if I’ve given a tool permission to go to the TPT website?
Example #3
If you’re using Google Sheets, you have to click a button to allow Google Sheets to access the internet. Here’s TPT Seller Tip 010 – My Keyword Rank Position Tool. It says under construction, because for a while, TPT blocked Google Sheets access, but now it works again.
Right away in my Google Sheets tools, you can see the terms of service if it’s going to visit the TPT website for you. You need to decide if this tool is right for you. Specifically, please check the “Don’t interfere with our Services” in the Guidelines for All TPTers. This Google Sheet is provided “as is” for use at your own risk. That’s fine and dandy, but not everyone reads the terms of service. But here’s the cool part. This Google sheet tool won’t work unless you manually approve access to the internet.
There’s a yellow bar at the top that says. Warning: Some formulas are trying to send and receive data from external parties. The google sheet can’t visit the internet until you click ALLOW ACCESS. I’m going to click on the Keyword Ranking tab in the footer. I’m going to put my store name as educircles. I’m going to click that “allow access” button. Now I’m going to change the keyword to five paragraph essay. The Google sheet loads the top 10 page results and I can quickly see where I rank.
Google sheets has a rate limiting feature so it doesn’t overload the websites it visits. So the more you use this tool, the slower it gets. And then you just wait an hour and the rate it visits the internet will no longer be limited and the tool will be fast again. Let’s go through the questions in the TPT Seller Tool checklist:
Question one: Does this tool connect to TPT? Yes, but you have to click the “allow access” button in Google sheets or Google sheets can’t access the internet. So this is a conscious decision.
Question two: If it does visit TPT, what does it actually do there? Great question. The tool actually discloses what it does on the first page: This tool loads the search results for the first 10 pages of a given TPT search term. The formulas on the SERP tab automate the process of downloading the search results so you don’t have to open each search page manually
Question three: What do TPT’s rules actually say about that? This comes back to the community guidelines we’ve been talking about. You’ll have to make your own determination for your business. Google Sheets, with your permission, is loading 10 pages for every keyword search. (It actually loads an 11th page for every search to get the number of resources.) Google sheets starts throttling and slowing down at around 50 calls per hour, so this tool should work fast for 4 or 5 searches… and then it will slow down so it doesn’t overwhelm TPT.
I wonder if Google sheets thinks that 50 page visits per hour is a reasonable speed. I wonder if TPT agrees. I also think it’s interesting that TPT allowed access to Google sheets again. TPT blocked access on Jul 28, 2026, the same time they stopped showing popularity search volume. But they’ve since re-allowed access by Google Sheets, so I wonder what changed? Okay Mike, what about Chrome extensions? A chrome extension is using my browser. Does that make a difference?
Chrome Extensions
Chrome extensions are interesting because they’re automated scripts that add functionality to your own chrome browser. Some chrome extension features might passively observe information on the pages you visit. But a chrome extension could also actively request information from different pages without you realizing it. And both of these features can exist in the same extension.
Here’s the installer page for my SEOT extension. It’s very boring because right now it’s just available to beta testers. I’m going to click Add to Chrome. And just like with Google Sheets, first you have to approve access to the TPT website.
I’m going to install the extension and then I’m going to pin this purple icon to the top. Now my extension has a privacy and data use consent screen. I’m going to click agree and continue to Google sign in and I’m going to sign into my Google account. And this is why I can’t distribute my chrome extension on TPT. My extension requires logging in and TPT doesn’t allow me to require an email address to gain access to something purchased on TPT. I’m going to show you two different ways how chrome extensions work.
Example #4 Chrome Extension – passive
Sometimes my chrome extension only does passive listening work. I’m on the new TPT keyword finder page. I’m going to click on the purple SEOT extension and then open up the side panel. I’m going to search on TPT keyword finder for “back to school goal setting”
And what this extension does is it watches the information loaded by my chrome browser and then if I scroll down, I can see here are 10 related keywords… And then I’m going to manually click this #2 at the bottom and the extension has now seen 10 more keywords. Let’s manually click page #3 at the bottom of TPT and the extension copies that down for me, and now let’s click on page #4 and again the chrome extension is passively watching the information from TPT for me.
Now if I go to the top and click on Today’s Research, the extension tells me it’s seen the one seed keyword that I’ve searched, and 40 related keywords. The real magic happens when I scroll down here and click on the filters to only show me keywords with fewer than 8K competitors. And if I sort it by searches, I can see what teachers are searching for as they look for “back to school goal setting” Let’s go through the TPT Seller Tool checklist:
Question one: Does this tool connect to TPT?
That’s an interesting question. Technically no. Remember growing up when your phone was a landline and we would call a friend and then your brother or sister would quietly pick up the phone in another room and listen to your conversation? It’s kind of like that. Did the chrome extension call the TPT website? No. Is it listening on the phone line? Yes. Does that make a difference? I don’t know? Does it?
Question two: If it does visit TPT, what does it actually do there?
Well, although the chrome extension isn’t calling TPT, it is still visiting TPT with us as we browse using our chrome browser. So what is the chrome extension doing? In this case, it’s watching to see what information loads. A chrome extension could be doing lots of invisible things behind the scenes, so unless we examine the code, we don’t know for sure what it’s doing. So then we’re looking for information from the developer about what this tool does. Right now, the tool is watching for specific keyword information and then it writes it down in the chrome extension memory.
Question three: What do TPT’s rules actually say about that?
Again we’re back to the community guidelines we’ve been talking about. Again, you have to make your own determination. The chrome extension is writing down keyword data for you as you travel your way through the TPT website. Right now, it’s not making any extra calls, so you have to decide if you think TPT will think this disrupts their website. We’re using TPT like we normally would and rather than copy pasting everything into a google sheet, we’re having the chrome extension be our personal note takers.
I wonder if TPT can tell that I’m using a chrome extension. If this was a landline phone conversation, we might not know there’s another person on the line. But then again, if they make a little noise, we might be able to detect them. So, in theory, the chrome extension is just passively listening to the information coming from the TPT website as we use keyword finder. But we’re assuming there isn’t some other noise or signal that TPT might hear.
Okay Mike, what would an active Chrome extension look like? Let’s have a peek.
Example #5 Chrome Extension – active
Let’s go back to the keyword finder. The side panel is open here. I’m going to look up back to school goals. If I scroll down, I can see there are 47 results. I’m going to click on this button that says “collect related keywords” and you can see the extension actively flip through the 47 results for me. Now let’s say I scroll down and see goal setting and I want to learn more, so I’m going to click on this keyword finder link. And I can see 102 related keywords. So I’m going to collect related keywords. And the chrome extension is going to flip through the pages in my browser for me and write down the keywords it sees. Now let’s do one more. I see back to school activities. Let’s click on that. I see 100 results reported. So let’s collect related keywords again. And it’s going to flip through the results for me.
And now if I click on view Today’s Research… the chrome extension has seen 199 keywords. I’m going to filter the resources to only show resources with fewer than 3K and then I’m going to sort by searches and I can instantly see which keywords are actually viable. Let’s go through the TPT Seller Tool checklist:
Question one: Does this tool connect to TPT? Yes. This time the chrome extension is visibly loading pages for us.
Question two: If it does visit TPT, what does it actually do there? It looks like it’s clicking the page numbers for us and loading each page one at a time. I can see it going through the pages, but I don’t actually know what the chrome extension is doing. I’d have to look at the code to see if it’s clicking on the page numbers, or if it’s loading the information in a different way. (In this particular case, yes, it calls control.click() and uses javascript to click the page button and make a normal pagination request.)
Question three: What do TPT’s rules actually say about that? Again, you have to make your own determination about TPT rules. Do you think they will care? Is this an automated means to obtain keyword data that disrupts or diminishes the quality or performance of their website? I wonder if going faster makes a difference. Last time, I had to click pages 2, 3, and 4. This time the chrome extension did it for me. I wonder how fast is too fast? Although this chrome extension is going quickly, it’s still loading the information one page at a time. There are faster ways to get information, but by design, this chrome extension is using the slower one-by-one method. Mike, I’m scared. I want to use your tools but I don’t want to automate access to TPT. No problem.
Three cool things about your store without automated access
Here are three cool things you can learn about your store without using automated access to TPT.
I just updated SEOT brain to have a basic mode. In basic mode, there’s no connection to TPT at all. YOU download your product stats CSV file. YOU download your sales data CSV files. YOU download your product listings HTML files. And you give that data to SEOT brain. (Don’t worry – there are tutorial videos showing you exactly what to do.)
Once SEOT brain has that information, it analyzes it and creates a database. Now you can answer 3 questions:
One. If you click on the suggestions tab, I can see my top 5 products that are selling right now, and the system tells me exactly what to fix for each resource. And if I click here, I can see why. There’s a tutorial video that explains how to read this diagram.
Two. If you click on bundle ideas, SEOT brain analyzes your sales data to see which products people buy together. It then comes up with a score out of 1,000 and gives you bundle suggestions. People in the testing group have told me this is a game changer because it gives you quick bundle ideas.
Three. If you click on any given product, you can see which products people bought before this one, and which ones people bought after this resource. So you can decide what to upsell or promote in your resource.
And for those of you who are more comfortable with automation, the advanced mode of SEOT brain lets you do one-click data updates, keyword research, and position tracking… all on your desktop or laptop.
If you’re curious about SEOT brain, visit seotbrain.com – It’s the next evolution of TPT Seller data tools. All of my tools… with the power of AI… saved on your own computer. It’s better than CSV files because SEOT brain constructs a database that AI can talk with. Soon, we’ll be able to answer some very deep questions about your business.
YouTube videos take forever to publish. So, if you’d like more information, join my free email community at SEOTpreneur.com/email for insider tips and giftcard giveaways. I’ll see you in the next video. Bye for now.