How to Automate Checking of AdWords Ads

using a script to check how many ads a keyword has

[wackimonki]

I am tempted to write a script in Ruby on Rails, which automate a lot of AdWords functionalities. One of these is to check how many AdWords adverts a particular keyword has.

I have tried searching for this information everywhere, but no dice. Does anyone know if this can be achieved via AdWords API or any other way?

I have the feeling that I will have to scrape this information from google itself. Does anyone have any experiences with this? What hits rate do I have to stay under so not to trigger Google's anti-bot CAPCHAS?

[briggidere]

I think you need to be careful with the data you get if you do scrape it. What about advertisers that use time scheduling etc? It'll put your figures out depending on when you run the script.

[wackimonki]

That is very true.

I guess I have to scrape the data at different time intervals. Though, all I need is a rough idea if a keyword is heavily contested for or not.

Anybody else got any ideas on this?

[arieng]

Ahhh, I've been thinking about such a script for months. For my needs, it doesn't need to exact. I envision using this information for a rough estimate of a keyword's competitiveness. If you could combine this with the ability to ID certain key competitors on the first page of ads, you'd have a pretty good feel for how much you'd need to spend to get a decent position.

Alas, anyone who actually tries to build one should be careful. It comes awfully close to breaking one of the Google Webmaster commandments:

Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

[wackimonki]

Are you trying to write something akin to spyfu? an AdWords competition checker. What's your script's objective?

For my use, I've just had an epiphany of sort. I can load up an automated ad for a keyword with a rock-bottom bid. If it gets impressions, then there are less than a page of competition. If after a few days of nothing, I might remove it to keep things clean.

I can do the above as well as systematically and carefully scraping google's page.

[arieng]

That's a pretty good idea, I might try it.

In my industry, there are a handful of websites that are true competitors, they carry almost the exact same inventory as we do and its been that way for 30 years. We all have a pretty good AdWords presence and are constantly trying to expand our keyword portfolios. At this point, all of the obvious ones are taken (about 25,000 that are up and running with a positive ROI and another 15K that didn't make the cut).

As we move further out into the keyword ether, I need to find new ways to evaluate the worth of 'iffy' keywords AND find the minumum bid that will get us sufficient impressions to have actionable data. I've tossed around the idea of scraping the first page of Google to see (a) how many advertisers are there, and (b) whether these competitors show up.

I know its kinda' childish, but I delight in finding a nice stash of keywords where a competitor has uncontested ads.

Does anyone have any feedback on a way to automate this process without stepping on Google's toes?