Discontinuation of (AJAX) Search APIs

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Jeremy Geerdes

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24 de jan. de 2014, 11:32:2624/01/2014

para Google-AJAX...@googlegroups.com

As people have been reporting on this group since yesterday (24 January 2014), the Local Search API has stopped functioning. Requests to the service endpoint are now being met with a 403 message indicating suspected TOS violations and abuse. Although I have seen no official announcement from anyone at Google, the reality is that this is not at all unexpected.

The Local Search API and the (AJAX) Web Search API were both officially deprecated on November 1, 2010 (here is the official announcement: http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/11/introducing-google-apis-console-and-our.html ), and the rest of the (AJAX) Search APIs (e.g., News, Image) were officially deprecated the following May at Google I/O 2011 (here is the official announcement: http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-our-apis.html). Per the TOS, these services were to be maintained - as long as it was commercially reasonable - for a period of three years. In other words, the Web and Local Search APIs were set to be discontinued in November 2013, with the other (AJAX) Search APIs following in May 2014.

In short, I do not anticipate that the Local Search API will return. And I fully expect that the Web and other services formerly included in the AJAX Search API family will be shut down over the next few months as well.

So what alternative services are available? The answer to that question, of course, depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, because the (AJAX) Search APIs were something of a one-stop shop for a very wide spectrum of functionality, there is no one great answer. Therefore, I have endeavored to compile a list of what are probably the best alternatives depending on a few of what I consider the most common use case scenarios. These are provided in no particular order, and I will leave it to the developer to read the documentation and conduct testing to determine which is the best solution for any particular application.

Basic Web Search

Google Custom Search API: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/json-api/v1/using_rest

Yahoo! BOSS: http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/

Bing Search API: http://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/bing/search

Blekko API (though it is presently unavailable): http://help.blekko.com/index.php/does-blekko-have-an-api/

Local business search

Bing AJAX v7 API: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg427610.aspx

Yelp Search API: http://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v2/search_api

Geocoding (i.e., Local Search)

Google Geocode API: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/

Mapquest Geocode API: http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/dev-services/geocoding-ws

Bing Spatial Data Services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff701734.aspx