Forum Moderators: open
GET /search?client=navclient-auto&ch=[b]************[/b]&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&features=Rank:FVN&q=info:[b]{encoded URL here}[/b] HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; GoogleToolbar 2.0.108-big; Windows XP 5.1)
Host: toolbarqueries.google.com
Cache-Control: no-cache
It's a simple GET request - and can be mimicked from your browser address bar. You just need to construct a URL with a complex querystring.
h*tp://toolbarqueries.google.com/search?
client=navclient-auto
&ch=61132044784 {this is some kind of checksum}
&ie=UTF-8
&oe=UTF-8
&features=Rank:FVN
&q=info:{URL, encoded}
When you request this from Google, this is what is returned:
Rank_1:1:9
Broken down into the component name & value pairs, the function of each is apparent.
"q" is the URL of the page you want the PR for, prepended by "info:".
"features" is a code that describes what will be returned. That argument is essentially a filter which tells google which information is needed by the toolbar... If we remove that argument from the request, Google returns a rather detailed XML description including the last crawl date, the PR, title, language, file size, and ID for Google's cached version of the page.
"ch" is apparently a checksum for "q" - but the algorithm (if there is one) is unknown to me. If you request a "q" but the "ch" is wrong, you get a harshly-worded "FORBIDDEN" message from Google.
Try it yourself.
The HTTP request for webmasterworld.com is:
GET /search?client=navclient-auto&ch=62500954857&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&features=Rank:FVN&q=info:http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ewebmasterworld%2Ecom HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; GoogleToolbar 2.0.108-big; Windows XP 5.1)
Host: toolbarqueries.google.com
Cache-Control: no-cache
You can request it from Google using this URL:
http://toolbarqueries.google.com/search?client=navclient-auto&ch=62500954857&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&features=Rank:FVN&q=info:http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ewebmasterworld%2Ecom [toolbarqueries.google.com]
and you can get a more detailed XML listing with this:
http://toolbarqueries.google.com/search?client=navclient-auto&ch=62500954857&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=info:http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ewebmasterworld%2Ecom [toolbarqueries.google.com]
After this investigation, my question to the forum is: How do you automate a request for your PR? Say, I have a collection of pages, and I'd like to see a summary of their PageRankings without all the tedious work of loading them and hand-copying the results from the Googlebar?
Obviously you can request PR information using the GET method described above, replacing the values for "q" and "ch". "q" is easy, that's the page you're asking about. But how do you determine the "ch" - and avoid the nasty FORBIDDEN message?
The answer (from some) is ... don't do it. BigDave says (in another thread):
it is a violation of google's TOS. It could lead to having your IP address banned from accessing google, or google could easily change their hash function and block your requests. They might even do like they did in the past and send you wrong information. And if too many people do it, they might find it to be in their best interest to stop sharing the PR information on sites.
The actual wording of the TOS is not specific - it remarks on hacking the bar, making derivative works, and twice it forbids "using the Google Toolbar in an automated manner". I argue that making an HTTP request - not using the Toolbar - might not be forbidden as defined in the TOS. But that's an argument for another thread.
It seems like an unfair stipulation. The Googlebar is piggybacking an HTTP request whenever I load a page... By having the Googlebar, I am essentially sending all my browsing activity to Google, who could easily be tracking all my browser activity. Google could compile some very interesting and valuable statistics, if they stored everyone's browsing choices for analysis. Why shouldn't I be allowed to send the same request deliberately, and use the results for my own enlightenment?
If anyone knows how to compute the "ch" checksum for a given "q", I would be very interested.
Cheers,
httpwebwitch
Try using the google API to grab the number of backlinks a URL has. Not a perfect estimation of PR, but probably the best you can get without causing all sorts of grief for yourself.
Ultimately, I want to find out what a page's PR is - not what it ought to be based on my own backlink sifting and calculations. A query to Google would be a good way to weed out PR0 and other problems on a website. On a site with over 2400 pages, it would take a very long time to find those PR0 pages when the PR for most pages range everywhere from 1 to 6.
Though I didn't find anything before, now I see that this subject has been typed to death in other threads... but no one has yet offered a good solution
:(
Why is it filtering some requests but not others?
It's not.
The checksum you're sending does not match the site you're requesting it for. The checksum has to match the site, otherwise Google knows you're not the toolbar.
Mack.
So it's fairly trivial to find it for any site. Simply monitor the HTTP request the toolbar sends when you connect to a page. Consequently, it's fairly trivial to build a tool/script to check it for a particular site, as long as you mine it out before hand.(1)
What's not trivial, however, is generating the checksum for any given site. For that, you'd have reverse-engineer the toolbar. (for an interesting blast from the past: PRMaster [webmasterworld.com])
1. Of course, I don't encourage any behavior which is against the Google TOS.
Mack.
I have MyIE, wich is a shell for IE with a lot of other stuff grappled on. So, i know that the Gtoolbar, just like any other plugin, uses some API to connect with IE. You just need to make a wrapper for the toolbar that makes it think it's instaled on IE. Then, that wrapper feeds the toolbar itself automatically, simulating a human user. You could even get sofisticated and make the wrapper make requests at random intervals, or something, so the ip used does not come under suspicion, or something....
I very rarely used it, since I had quickly come to the conclusion that the toolbar PR really means nothing in the context of getting better rankings in SERPs.
The toolbar PR display is there to serve Google. It provides a mechanism for determining if people actually view the page. It may still also be used to check the freshness of a page.
Getting your PR without the Toolbar
www . webmasterbrain . com / proogle /
They have google search engine with pagerank next to the search results. Very nifty if you want to check all your competition of a certain keyword or do a search for backlinks :)
Disclaimer. I am not connected to this tool in any way except using it.
