Faster Scraping, Smarter Ad Data, and Better Reliability
Every week, we work on making Scrapingdog faster, more reliable, and more useful for developers and data teams. This week is no different.
Here’s everything that’s new at Scrapingdog this week.
1. Sponsored Ads Now Visible in Google AIO and AI Mode APIs
Google’s AI-powered search results are becoming the new normal. But until now, if you were using our Google AIO API or Google AI Mode API, you could only see the organic AI-generated results and not the paid ones.
That changes now.
We’ve added full support for sponsored products and ads inside both APIs. This means you can now extract paid placements right alongside organic AI results, all in one API call.
What you can now extract:
- Sponsored product listings
- Paid ad placements
- Promoted brand results
- Organic AI-powered results
Who is this useful for?
If you’re doing competitive research, you can now see which brands are paying to show up inside Google’s AI search experience. If you’re running ad monitoring or brand tracking, you get a more complete picture of the SERP and not just half of it.
Think of it this way: before this update, you were reading a newspaper but someone had torn out all the advertisements. Now you get the full page.
2. Google Lens API: Empty Results Issue Fixed
The Google Lens API is used for reverse image search, visual matching, and image recognition workflows.
Some users noticed that valid image queries were occasionally coming back with empty results, even when the image was perfectly fine. That was frustrating, and we heard you.
That bug is now fixed.
The API now returns consistent, reliable results across all image types and queries. Whether you’re doing product image matching, reverse search, or visual content research, you can expect stable output every time.
3. Google News API: Empty Results Issue Fixed
Similar to the Lens issue, some users were hitting a problem where the Google News API returned empty responses for valid news queries.
News articles, headlines, and regional results were simply not showing up, even when they should have been.
This has been resolved. The Google News API now delivers reliable news data across supported regions and query types without random empty responses getting in the way.
If your workflow depends on tracking news stories, monitoring brand mentions in the news, or pulling headlines for research, this fix makes your pipeline much more dependable.
4. New Google Scraper Dashboard UI
We also redesigned the Google Scraper Dashboard UI this week.
If you’ve used the dashboard before, you know that finding the right scraper parameters and configuration options could sometimes feel like a treasure hunt. The old layout made it harder than it needed to be.
The new interface is cleaner, faster to navigate, and easier to use, especially if you manage multiple scraping configurations or work with advanced settings regularly.
What’s improved:
- Easier access to scraper parameters
- Cleaner layout and navigation
- Faster workflow for setting up and managing requests
- Better overall usability for both new and experienced users
You don’t need to change anything on your end. Just log in to the dashboard and you’ll see the updated interface right away.
Quick Summary
Here’s everything that shipped this week at a glance:
| Update | What Changed |
|---|---|
| Google AIO & AI Mode APIs | Now support sponsored products and ads |
| Google Lens API | Empty results bug fixed |
| Google News API | Empty results bug fixed |
| Google Scraper Dashboard | Redesigned UI for easier navigation |
Try It Yourself
All of these updates are live right now. Log in to your Scrapingdog dashboard to explore the new UI and test the updated APIs.
New to Scrapingdog? Start with 1,000 free credits and see how easy it is to collect public web data at scale.
We’ll be back next week with more updates. If you have feedback or run into any issues, reach out to our support team and we’re always listening.
