Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
From our discussions with webmasters, we've consistently heard requests to open Webmaster Tools for third-party integration. The Webmaster Tools team has taken this request to heart and I'm happy to announce that we're now releasing an API for Webmaster ToolsA developer's guide [code.google.com] is also available for anyone that wants to have a play around.
Get Cooking with the Webmaster Tools API [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]
There's fairly limited data/functionality available at this stage, but it's one to watch IMO.
Inapproprite ranking of metaphorical language is a challenging "edge case" for search, and I have a suspicion that this is a test case!
test case
I confess, I had a totally "user" perspective when reading the blog post: I skipped through all the cooking content until I got to where it told me about the API features. My impression was that it was the result of an over-zealous copywriter.
But you make a great point. The beauty of it being that even if it was unintentional, we can still use it as test. My money is on it appearing for irrelevant searches in the very near future ;)
My money is on it appearing for irrelevant searches in the very near future
I don't think I was far off ;)
Still, it's an interesting question as to what is or isn't relevant - the page does contain information about cooking after all.
It also raises some questions about the impact of a themed site vs an off-topic page on an established (but largely irrelevant) resource.
Of course, this thread is now suffering from a similar problem!
...all the cooking content...
Maybe this article contains some algo hints, clues to those magic phrases that tell Google what an article's really about....
How all this relates to webmasters is that the webmaster community is also made up of a diverse group of people who use a variety of tools in a myriad of ways. Just like how within the outdoor cooking community there's a contingent of people creating their own solar ovens, the webmaster community has a subgroup of people creating and sharing their own tools.
Perhaps "just like how" could become more powerful onpage optimizing tool than the title element. ;)
In this case, I found the most useful thing about the article was the link to the Developer's Guide [code.google.com], which gets to the point...
Google Webmaster Tools allows client applications to view and update site information and Sitemaps in the form of Google Webmaster Tools Data API feeds. Your client application can use the Google Webmaster Tools Data API to view sites in your account, add and remove sites, verify site ownership, and submit and delete Sitemaps.
Roughly how that went down.
"Jonathan, you need to write 4 paragraphs on the new Webmaster Tools API"
- Crap, I only have 2 paragraphs. Oh I know, I'll just write gibberish about cooking in the beginning to fill space and waste everyone's time.
"Perfect"
Lol. The timestamp shows 1:22PM, so he must have been working fast so he could get to a late lunch. I wonder if he had that solar oven picture already, or if he went out and built one :)
