How to stop decode of %2F %3A or other in URL for REST API Call (Google Search Console API usecase)

Problem

If you are making REST API call using SSIS PowerPack or ODBC Drivers such as below and you faced 404 Error ?

Request:

POST https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/https%3A%2F%2Fzappysys.com/searchAnalytics/query?key={YOUR_API_KEY}

{
"startDate": "2018-11-01",
"endDate": "2018-11-15"
}

 

And you get below error?

System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.
Response Url: https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/https://zappysys.com/searchAnalytics/query

Status Code: NotFound

Notice that in Request URL %2F%3F%3F is decoded back to :// (see Request ( Raw) panel)

Cause

By default characters encoded characters in URL Path is Decoded back. So for example https%3A%2F%2F will be changed to https://  when URL is sent to API Server. This obviously creates problem because it must remain Encoded inside URL Path (Path is anything before ? in URL). 

Solution

Add --dont-escape-- suffix in URL

For example change original URL as below to fix the error.

https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/https%3A%2F%2Fzappysys.com/searchAnalytics/query--dont-escape--

After you change as above and click Test notice how it shows unchanged URL in request (%2F and %3F is not changed)

 For more information check this link.

Using JSON Source - Read Google Search Console API Example

Now lets look at 

URL

https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/<<https://zappysys.com,FUN_URLENC>>/searchAnalytics/query--dont-escape--

POST

{
"startDate": "2019-01-01",
"endDate": "2019-01-10",
"dimensions" : ["date","country"]
}

Contact Us

If you have more question(s) feel free to contact us via Live chat or email to [e-mail]

https://zappysys.com/support/