I've been playing around again with the Google API tools and I've noticed that they're using an old view of Google's index. I probably wouldn't have noticed this if Google hadn't made such radical changes recently to its search results.

Anybody got any good Google HTML parsers that don't use the API? It's unfortunate that I have to ask for this, but if the results are going to be different, I want to make sure that I'm looking at the results most humans will see.

This is a major disappointment, because this really destroys the utility of a Web Services API - if the same query returns different results depending on the input method, we're put into the position of parsing through HTML in order to get the "real" results.

Perhaps this will change when Google comes out of Beta period with the API. When they do, I'll also be interested in understanding their terms of use of the API for commercial purposes as well. As it is, the Terms of Service say that we can't use the API calls for commercial purposes without written permission. Bummer! I've sent an email to api-support@google.com requesting clarification. The folks at Google are smart and have good heads on their shoulders, my hope is that they do the right thing. Anyone at Google listening?!?