Google blog search API deprecation
Ravi
alternatives?
Jeremy Geerdes
Jeremy R. Geerdes
Generally Cool Guy
Des Moines, IA
For more information or a project quote:
jrge...@gmail.com
If you're in the Des Moines, IA, area, check out Debra Heights Wesleyan Church!
On Jul 3, 2011, at 10:36 PM, Ravi wrote:
> Is the google blog search API being deprecated? If so, are there
> alternatives?
>
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Ravi
Thanks for the prompt reply. I did read about the Custom search engine
API. It appears that I would have to manually add the list of websites
that I want to search. I would like to confine my search to just
blogs, but want to include all the blogs that are indexed by google.
Obviously, If i have to add it manually this is not possible. I could
have achieved it via the blog search API. Did google give any reason
as to why they were deprecating this API? In future, is there going
to be a better alternative than custom search API?
Thanks
Ravi.
On Jul 4, 12:00 am, Jeremy Geerdes <jrgeer...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes. And the closest thing to an alternative at this point is the Custom Search API.
>
> Jeremy R. Geerdes
> Generally Cool Guy
> Des Moines, IA
>
> For more information or a project quote:
Jeremy Geerdes
Jeremy R. Geerdes
Generally Cool Guy
Des Moines, IA
For more information or a project quote:
If you're in the Des Moines, IA, area, check out Debra Heights Wesleyan Church!
Zdravko Gligic
shifting into various widgets. This makes sense because there is no
way to make money with data API's because there is no advertising in
them, while widgets are totally under their control.
While all of that makes prefect sense now, where on earth were they
when they originally launched such data driven API ? What is it that
they learned over the past few years that they could not have
anticipated from the very beginning? Because they are everything but
stupid and incompetent, I am really struggling to explain the mess
that they have created. Were they really that irresponsible ?
Jeremy Geerdes
This makes sense because there is no way to make money with data API's because there is no advertising in them, while widgets are totally under their control.
Ads are not the only way to monetize these APIs. They're going with a charge per-request model in the Custom Search API and others available via the API Console, and I would assume that they will do something with the oft-discussed Translation API come December 1.
...where on earth were they when they originally launched such data driven API?
Actually, when the AJAX Search APIs were initially launched, they did include advertising. And the Search Control displayed them. The trouble here was that there was 1 ad for every 2 results, and the max number of results you could retrieve was 8. And then, it was only via the JSAPI (i.e., no public RESTful endpoints). And the general consensus among the community - and the dev team - was that this was a bit of overkill on the ads. So they did include ads with the API - and required their display in the TOS. The team that originally developed and launched the AJAX APIs were absolutely committed to the end user experience and the developer community and fought to remove the ads in response to their feedback.
What is it that they learned over the past few years that they could not have anticipated from the very beginning?
I think that, if a Googler was to answer that question, it would be something about the magnitude of abuse that people would inflict on a service.
Were they really that irresponsible?
Actually, the people that originally developed the AJAX APIs were extraordinarily intelligent and responsible. The team that runs them now, I believe, is equally so. At some point, though, even Google has to bow to the reality that there are people out here who will cheat and steal to make a couple of bucks. If you search this forum, you will find an insane number of posts asking something to the effect of, "How can I workaround the limit on the number of results?" And even, "How can I make an insanely large number of requests via an automated script so I can...?" The APIs were originally developed to be bonus functionality for websites and applications. But how many websites and applications have been built solely around these APIs and thus become competition for the company that actually creates and powers them, often at significant expense?
Bottom line: As frustrating as it is that Google is killing many of the services we love and count on, we really can't blame them. They're simply responding to the sheer amount of abuse by unscrupulous, lazy and/or ignorant developers and trying to be consistent with the mandates of publicly-traded corporate America: i.e., make money on everything you do. Not necessarily in that order.
The one thing that I wish we had was a clear migration path for all of the services that they've deprecated. For instance, is the Translation API really going to be shut down on December 1 and replaced by a totally different paid service (as they've indicated), in which case applications will have to be reworked to support the new service (i.e., development time), or (as I suspect) are they just going to flip a switch so that the Translate API v2 becomes 100% pay-per-request? Or the various search APIs (e.g., Image, News and Blog): will there be a suitable upgrade path using Google services, or should we just start working on alternatives (e.g., Yahoo!, Bing, custom)?
Jeremy R. Geerdes
Generally Cool Guy
Des Moines, IA
For more information or a project quote:
jrge...@gmail.com
If you're in the Des Moines, IA, area, check out Debra Heights Wesleyan Church!