Send request to google's geocoding API from the terminal - api

Question

I'm trying to geocode a lot of data. I have a lot of machines across which to spread the load (so that I won't go over the 2,500 requests per IP address per day). I am using a script to make the requests with either wget or cURL. However, both wget and cURL yield the same "request denied" message. That being said, when I make the request from my browser, it works perfectly. An example request is:
wget http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA&sensor=true
And the resulting output is:
[1] 93930
05:00 PM ~: --2011-12-19 17:00:25-- http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA
Resolving maps.googleapis.com... 72.14.204.95
Connecting to maps.googleapis.com|72.14.204.95|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [application/json]
Saving to: `json?address=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA'
[ <=> ] 54 --.-K/s in 0s
2011-12-19 17:00:25 (1.32 MB/s) - `json?address=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA' saved [54]
The file it wrote to only contains:
{
"results" : [],
"status" : "REQUEST_DENIED"
}
Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

The '&' character that separates the address and sensor parameters isn't getting passed along to the wget command, but instead is telling your shell to run wget in the background. The resulting query is missing the required 'sensor' parameter, which should be set to true or false based on your input.
wget "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA&sensor=false"