For those of you that have read my blog before, you might have seen that I'm slightly obsessed with **getting index status data from Google**...

Up until now if someone wanted to get indexing information from Google Search Console, you would have to [automate the URL Inspection tool](https://jlhernando.com/blog/url-inspector-automator-node/) or [extract it in bulk from the Index Coverage Report](https://jlhernando.com/blog/index-coverage-extractor/) using a headless browser modules like Playwright or Puppeteer.

However, today our prayers have been answered!

The Google Search Console team [has released an official endpoint](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/01/url-inspection-api#using-the-new-api) to use the **URL Inspection Tool from their API**!

![Official URL Inspection API endpoint from the Google Search Console Team](/img/url-inspection-annouuncement-gsc-team.jpg 'Official URL Inspection API endpoint from the Google Search Console Team')

In this blog post, I'll show you how you can **extract index status data in bulk** through this new endpoint using my [newly published script](https://github.com/jlhernando/google-index-inspect-api) in Node.js

## Before you run the script

Make sure that you have [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/en/) in your machine. At the time of writing this post I’m using version 16.4.2.

In this script I'm using a specific syntax that can only be used from version 14 onwards so double check that you are above that version.

```bash
# Check Node version
node -v
```

Download the script using git, Github’s CLI or simply [downloading the code from Github directly](https://github.com/jlhernando/google-index-inspect-api).

```bash
# Git
git clone https://github.com/jlhernando/google-index-inspect-api.git

# Github’s CLI
gh repo clone https://github.com/jlhernando/google-index-inspect-api
```

Then install the necessary modules to run the script by typing _npm install_ in your terminal

```bash
npm install
```

Update the `urls.csv` file with the individual URLs that you would like to check in the first column and the GSC property which they belong to. Keep the headers.

```csv
url,property
https://jlhernando.com/blog/how-to-install-node-for-seo/,https://jlhernando.com/
https://jlhernando.com/blog/index-coverage-extractor/,https://jlhernando.com/
```

Update the `credentials-secret.json` using your own OAuth 2.0 Client IDs credentials from your [Google Cloud Platform account](https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials).

![Credentials from Google Cloud Platform](/img/oauth-credentials.jpg 'Credentials from Google Cloud Platform')

## Running the script from your terminal and expected output

To run the script from your terminal simply use the following command:

```bash
npm start
```

### Progress messages

If the script is able to authenticate you from the URLs and properties you are trying to check you will see a series of progress messages:

![Success progress messages](/img/url-inspection-message-success.jpg 'Success progress messages')

On the contrary if either your credentials don't match the set of URLs and properties you are trying to extract, you will receive a failed message and the script will stop.

![Failure message](/img/url-inspection-message-fail.jpg 'Failure message')

### Expected output

If the script has been successful in retrieving index status data, you will have a `credentials.csv` file and a `credentials.json` file under the `RESULTS` folder (unless you have changed the name in the script).

![Coverage file output](/img/coverage-gsc-api.jpg 'Coverage file output')

If there are any extractions errors, these will be in another file named `errors.json`

This is very much an MVP and there are many optimisations that could be done, but it does the job. Remember that GSC has a limit of 2000 calls per day and 600 calls per minute, so only upload up to 2000 URLs in your `urls.csv` file.

I hope that you find this script useful and if you have any thoughts [hit me up on Twitter @jlhernando](https://twitter.com/jlhernando).