The Chatterbox

Just a quick note for those how may be using some of the tools available here. Namely those using the All In Title or Common Link tools and trying to query Google via the old SOAP API.

Yes I am aware those tools are not currently working as expected. Jill notified me yesterday that a custom built AIT tool I'd made for her internal use some time ago had stopped working and was producing an error message. I've tested it here with my versions too, and they're also not working as expected.

It appears, at first glance anyway, that Google may have disabled their SOAP servers that were delivering information via the old SOAP API. I'm not 100% positive this is what's happening yet and have a query out to try to confirm that they've intentionally disabled SOAP requests, but that's what it looks like is happening.

In all honesty I figured this day would come eventually. It only makes sense considering they stopped issuing SOAP keys many years ago now. In fact, they even stopped answering questions on the SOAP Google Group well over a year ago, so the writing was definitely on the wall. It is however going to have a detrimental effect on literally thousands of scripts out there, not just the couple where I've integrated the SOAP API calls to gather data.

I've seen no official or even semi-official announcements on the subject yet, so am unable to confirm if this is a temporary problem or the final nail in the coffin. But I'm trying to get the information. Update: It's confirmed, the SOAP API servers are gone and gone for good. More updates from yours truly at the end. Unfortunately if it's gone it's simply going to be gone and I'm either going to have to remove those tools that use a Google API or in the case of the Common Link finder simply remove the Google search results from the options.

Though I could certainly script a little scraper to get the information, I'm not going to. Not only is that against Google's TOS, but it's simply bad form IMHO. And to knowledge the other API Google started offering when they stopped sending out SOAP API's just won't work for these tools. Or at least won't work for free tools because there would be a cost involved to start using that method.

Sorry for the bad news, but it is what it is. If you have any problems with it, tell Google to turn their SOAP servers back on.

Additional Update: I will not be converting any of my tools over to Google's Ajax APIs. Not because I don't want to have support for Google, but because their Ajax/REST method has returned buggy information since day one, and even years after the fact they've chosen to allow the bugs to live on. Bad data is worse than useless as far as I'm concerned. It's dangerous! Why? Because it could cause some people who trust the data to be correct to make some very bad business decisions.

I simply will not be a party to spreading such misinformation when I know it's there. Only Google can fix it, and I think it's safe to say after 2 years of bug reports on most of the issues they're not going to magically get fixed now.

Looks like that's the end of Google's API. Well, cept for the one they pay lip service to but have mangled so badly it's useless to real developers who want to do anything even a millimeter outside the box Google has painted everybody into.

Just a quick note to notify I have released the Ajax version of Google Rank Extractor.

With the new release there have been several changes and improvements, all of which are documented in History section the README file. And I've also set up a dedicated page for the tool to make things a bit easier for me to maintain. The link above points to this new page.

The switch to Ajax (obviously) makes the tool useful to a much larger number of sites.

Previous posts on the subject: Initial Release
First Update

For those who don't actively track this stuff, Google is apparently getting set to release some major revamps of their code. Something they're calling Caffeine. You can see the preview at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/. You can also of course use this preview to compare rankings side-by-side with the current Google.

It's noteworthy to realize Google doesn't normally release such previews prior to an algorithm update. In fact it's never happened like this before. The fact that they are releasing a preview may indicate there is a lot more going on in this update than is at first apparent.

They're not saying much about what has changed exactly, as is completely normal and understandable. I'm sure those who watch these things will be espousing their opinions on the changes over the coming days/weeks. Note that you won't see any great changes in the user interface or how it looks visually. All of the changes are happening in the back end in the way they spider, index and rank sites.

I checked some of the markets and keywords I've tracked over a long time period and didn't see a ton of movement. One thing that I did notice is that without fail sites I knew were involved in a good bit of link spamming, where someone manages to get a ton of low quality links by blog/forum spamming, but where there are few or no legitimate high quality backlinks have taken a tumble. Not just a few places either, but many, many pages.

From this single observation it appears Google may be getting a better handle on preventing people from artificially pumping up their sites with these low quality links with spot on anchor text. I don't see it as a penalty, just that those links aren't conferring as much weight, trust or authority as they have been. Which is a good thing in my book.

In checking my own sites for their main (most competitive) keyword phrases they're all either holding steady in the New Google, or in many cases my sites have gained a bit more traction. This applies across the board, both for older more established sites and for newer sites that don't yet have a large footprint.

All in all I didn't see a lot of movement. But what I saw looks okay to me.

Additional Resources for more reading:
Matt Cutts' Blog
Google's Webmaster Central Blog
Vanessa Fox's initial thoughts on the new Google on Search Engine Land. (Vanessa used to work at Google for those unaware.)