Is there a way to find web data services?

Question

Is there any way to take a website and find their web data service? What I mean is trying to find for instance a WCF Service with out having any prior knowledge of its existence?

Answer 1

Websites with web-services include a 'WSDL' or 'WADL' page, so you can use Google Advanced Search to search for pages that include wsdl OR wadl in the URL and limit the search to the site you're interested in. For example:

allinurl:  wsdl OR wadl site:ec.europa.eu

This finds the web-service for the European Commission's website:

ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/checkVatService.wsdl