It's a terrible day. Really terrible.
The fortune has a sense of humour: business of a guy who referred more than 150 people to AdWords, who volunteered for more than 1,5 years to help large community of software developers to effectively use AdWords became ruined in one day by AdWords itself. This shot killed not only mine business, but great plenty of time of 500 people, who are forced to spend their time not with their families, children and friends, but entering/copying data from the Keyword Sandbox manually.
The software which was rated by its users as "fantastic", "best", "brillant" has just became obsolete as the result of a single exact shot: Google has closed public access to Keyword Sandbox. It was the only software that actually used the data from this tool, and it was the main reason of its success. All other features, like Google AdWords report analyzer, log file analyzer and conversion tracker have became the weapons on the tank without the wheels.
It's the cry for help to AdWordsAdvisor: please, unlock the Keyword Sandbox.
Best regards, Max.
PS: Hope I'm the only one who will lose the business and get more than $5000 debt in one day because of this fact.
Works fine for me.
I noticed that it stopped allowing "anonymous" access earlier today.
My point is the login to access the sandbox was required on Thursday or earlier.
- Create a dummy Google AdWords account and get an username/password
- If you want to access the keyword suggestion tool from outside, set a "cookie" (?!?) on the client computer with the AdWords username/password information.
- Fool the keyword suggestion tool into believing that the client computer has logged into an AdWords account (with the help of the "cookie")
Just thinking out aloud..
But er.. if Google doesn't want you to access the tool from outside, perhaps its not a good idea to undermine the system.
A dummy account with whose credit card?
You don't need a credit card to get a working Google AdWords username/password.
Sure, we have great programmers on board, but the problem is not in getting the second AdWords account and using it. We have already created "Virtual User" - module that emulates all type-ins and clicks regular user does when he uses AdWords. The problem is much more complex: we get "403 Forbidden" error when we try to make more than 20-30 requests, even using regular AdWords customer account. Google locks access to Keyword Sandbox for about 30-40 minutes after this message.
We have already wrote to Google AdWords support team with the questions regarding it, however we still get no answers at all (more than 10 hours passed). It was the second letter regarding this problem - after we wrote the first letter we got the standard response: "What operating system do you use, what's your IP, etc.". They even don't read our questions! It was Google UK support.
The Google Keyword Sandbox is not vital to us now, because we have already found the way to get the list of similar keywords from other sources. The only feature we miss is the list of misspelled keywords. It's not hard to replace, too.
I see that situation is not only in "automated queries". Overture allows everybody to use its Keyword Suggestion Tool and it doesn't make it any harm. Moreover, many people use Overture to promote THEIR services, not Overture. I don't used Keyword Sandbox in the way that makes no good to Google.
Moreover, I contacted Google AdWords support PRIOR to writing a single line of code and got a positive response: "Your system is allowed to use Keyword Sandbox, if it helps our customers to advertise better". 4 months passed, and I need to spend and lose money again, because they changed their minds.
Sure, we will find the ways to make our software usable. But it will cost us real money and lost nerves. Next time I will prefer not to rely on anybody's promises. It was my fault, and I hope that it's the fault of me only.
The next version of our software will be available on the 10th of November, and it will contain no single line of code that relies solely on Google.
Best regards, Max.
Maybe there is a limit to the frequency of requests you are allowed?
Your automated script might be setting off a trigger (hence the 30 minute lockout) by performing too many queries, in too short a time. Try adding a 'delay' after each request.
The idea of putting in a delay sounds fair. And the SE's coming back with some specific rules about how often/how much programs (or just very dedicated human researchers) can use the services.
A lot of 'public services' have language in their ToS that restricts "any automated processes, robots, or non-human browsers" -- but that's a bit vague. What if I write a new browser, for instance, that will queue up searches that I want to run?
All of that said, basing a business around something another company offers as a free public service seems a bit like building a house upon the sand.
