Why we will always have 8 results...the answer

[Dominick]

I keep seeing people ask for more than 8 results and pagination.
Please keep in mind that it is not a technical issue why Google hasn't
added this feature...it's a sound business decision on Google's part.
The AJAX Search API is designed to ultimately drive more traffic to
Google. By giving sites the ability to display every single result
would cause other users to visit Google less often.

But searching Google is searching Google, right? NO!!!!! Ad revenue is
Google's bread and butter. Now, of course many of you would like to
add your own adsense account to the results displayed via the AJAX API
forcing Google into sharing its revenue with a site that has the
ability to show all the results thus eliminating the need for users to
venture to Google.com where they keep 100% of the ad revenue.

Google is too smart of a compnay to create a bunch of mini-googles that
could ultimately drive traffic away from the parent site.

[ahmed]

Yeah Google is very smart , but know what, they just lost another loyal
customer, i moved to Yahoo search API, although i prefer Google as an
engine, and although Google API (the SOAP one not the AJAX) had easier
integration with my C#.NET applications, but Google made me no other
choice to take,

and i think if Google continued to follow its marketers instead of
being in the side of the customer it will LOOOOOOOOOSE

why?

Because they are not providing softwares (such as Micro$oft) they are
providing services, and the reason that they grew up very quickly was
that they were very clever in innovating Win-Win relationships with
their clients, once they start to break that, i don't think they are
going to prevail much.

A disappointed, previously loyal Google user

[RUSD]

Ahmed is 110% on target. They are not taking into account the value of
brand awareness and loyalty that this COULD create. After all their
logo is slapped on it. The more people see that logo, the more they are
apt to visit Google in other ways.

But put aside the marketing aspect and focus just on the Web
developement side. Why would I bother to use this at all if in the end
I'm just directing traffic to Google? And how do I get my user back??
Leaving one site to another is a big no-no. It's confusing for most
users. This could have been a sweet application but sadly Google...
this is going to fail miserably the way it is now.

I'm already looking at Yahoo's/IBM Omnifind as an alternative. It looks
very promising.

[Jonathan Sadowski]

Plus, I must also point out that Google Co-op already has pagination
and more than 8 results on one page... so what's the difference?

This API should allow it too.

[cmm]

> Because they are not providing softwares (such as Micro$oft) they are
> providing services, and the reason that they grew up very quickly was
> that they were very clever in innovating Win-Win relationships with
> their clients, once they start to break that, i don't think they are
> going to prevail much.

I'm not sure what the "win" for google is - you get to use their
software, their hardware, their bandwidth, their support - and they
don't even get a link to their site? Where's the win for google?

I think any definition of client includes the concept of payment - and
so far as I know - no one on this group has paid for any of these
services.