I need to provide search functionality as the cornerstone of my app (basically I think I can make a better interface than whats is offered by Google, bing, yahoo - bold claim I know). Therefore I will not build an entire search engine from scratch, I will rather use an API provider by a major search engine and simply modify the interface that present the results to my visitors. I am a Google fanboi and I initially tried to use Google Search AJAX API. However, I was very disappointed since I can barely change anything at all.
Specifically;
I need an API that will let me pull programmatically the results from a major search engine and let me output them with the style and goodies that I want.
I am not looking to alter the order in which the search results are presented to the user by inserting crap in between the good results (this is against my philosophy). But I would like to wrap massive php/javascript around each search results so that I can completely control how each result is graphically rendered.
I heard of the BING API 2.0, would that be more flexible than Google AJAX API? Could anyone provide output if any of the current search providers are offering API for this purpose right now?
After careful investigation it appears to me that the Bing 2.0 API is the most flexible and robust search API currently on the market.
The Bing API does require you to put their ads next to the results. You can place your own ads with the Yahoo API. The Yahoo API uses the same search technology (same results) and can be used starting from $0,40 per 1000 queries. The lowest, bulk price of the Google API is $4,00 per 1000 queries. Google's relevance is easily ten times higher for the somewhat more advanced queries.
And also Bing version 2 search API is free!
Whereas, Yahoo BOSS V2 has pricing and so Google does custom search API.
Related
This is probably a very easy answer, but Google's documentation is not helpful in detailing what to expect with ads.
I am updating a site from the old paid GSS (since it will soon be phased out), and transitioning them to Google CSE. If we use the JSON/Atom API, will ads be displayed? Google is insistent on telling you that CSE is free because they display ads, but it's not clear if ads show up when using/paying for search queries through the JSON API.
Thanks!
In case anyone is trying to find the answer to this in the future, the answer is no; ads do not display by default when results are pulled using the JSON API.
This is pretty much what I expected since the ads themselves would have to be pulled from JSON, and we're not pulling in any ads. This means that sites that need the CSE but don't want Ads can get around it by implementing their search with the API. You just have to keep the query limit in mind and pay if you expect more than 100/day.
Alternatively, if you qualify as a non-profit, you can follow the prompts in the CSE control panel to register as such and implement the CSE with the provided script as usual without any ads or branding.
Google just announced the retirement of some deprecated but pretty useful search API's, like Google Patent Search API, Google News Search API, Google Blog Search API, Google Video Search API and Google Image Search API
and forwarded to the Custom Search API as the recommended alternative.
What would now be the syntax for a patent search with the custom search API?
e.g. for
https://developers.google.com/patent-search/?utm_campaign=chrome_deprication_api_011516&utm_source=gdev
the patent-search uri will be gone.
The javascript API is the google.search.PatentSearch class, which I assume will also be removed.
And I don't see anything like Patent, Video or Images in the https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/ref_prebuiltlabels
The answer at Python module for searching patent databases, ie USPTO or EPO looks like it would be helpful to you. It gives a Python example of doing a Google patent search using the custom search API.
You could also switch over to using IPStreet.com. The provide a RESTful API endpoint for basic keyword searching of patents as well as advanced semantic search algorithm (Latent Semantic Indexing). http://www.ipstreet.com/
I'm trying to use the Google custom search engine API to query Google News. The API is working great otherwise - but I want to get News results instead of web results.
I can't find a way to either restrict the CSE to use Google News, or to ensure that my API query hits Google News rather than the web search. Does anyone know a way to achieve this?
You can use schemas from Schema.org to specify if you're only looking for articles/ blog posts.
To specify the Schema, go to Advanced settings on the Control Panel and select the required schema from here.
There was a News Search API but it's deprecated:
Important: The Google News Search API has been officially deprecated
as of May 26, 2011. It will continue to work as per our deprecation
policy, but the number of requests you may make per day may be
limited.
https://developers.google.com/news-search/
You can see some alternatives SO users recommended on this question.
I have been using the Google Websearch API for over 1 year now. The service was deprecated in Nov 2010 but continues to provide results to date. More recently, google has started to enforce the 1,000 queries (?) per day limit on this deprecated service. I swear, last month I made over 10,000 API calls in one day without any errors from the service (same IP, same API key).
So I guess my question is has anyone found an alternative yet? I know yahoo boss is pretty good but I am working exclusively on Google for my projects. I do not mind spending money for for this service either as long as i can get 64 results from Google.
On that thought, how are services like Zoomrank able to bypass all Google limits? I have a subscription with Zoomrank and I can get daily rankings for all my keywords. Do they have a tie-up with Google or are they just accessing some secret service I don't know about.
Some people have suggested the new Google custom search, but i dont know how does that help me search the web? Google CS is limited to the CSE you create and searches within those engines. If I am looking for web results for Pizza, Google CS doesnt help me.
Thanks for your input. Much appreciated
UPDATE: #ggez44 points to some official Google documentation of the solution described below here: http://support.google.com/customsearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1210656
You can use the Google Custom Search Engine to search the entire web.
In brief:
Create a CSE that searches a single site (e.g. google.com)
In the CSE control panel's Basics section, set to "Search the entire web but emphasize certain sites"
In the Sites section, delete the single site that you added when you created the CSE
Full details here:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/customsearch/thread?tid=56c0bd92dda351b7&hl=en&fid=56c0bd92dda351b7000495e3f500d83f
Once that's implemented, you can enable billing in the Google API Console at a CPM of $5, to a total of 10,000 queries.
Google API Console: https://code.google.com/apis/console/
Pricing: https://code.google.com/apis/customsearch/v1/overview.html#Pricing
Yahoo's BOSS API allows one to query the Yahoo search database and return values back to the calling program for extraction and usage. Does Google offer a similar tool or API for developers?
I understand that Yahoo BOSS is set to begin charging for queries in excess of 10k per day and I have a shipping plugin which pulls data on demand from this engine, so I'm looking to allow the end user to choose their search provider in order that I can spread the risk.
Yes it does. JSON/Atom Custom Search API
Yes - the google custom search API. There was once a SOAP API, but it is deprecated now.
See this announcement