(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/bluecinema)
After first being announced back in 2011, several of Google’s search APIs will find themselves officially retired as of February 15th. Luckily, with Google being a search company, the defunct APIs have been replaced with a superior alternative in the form of the Custom-Search API.
The APIs heading into retirement include; Patent Search, News Search, Blog Search, Image Search, and Video Search. No-one will be receiving awards here for guessing what each API was designed for.
Expect some broken functionality if you refuse to update.
Google has to be credited for its support of the APIs since announcing their retirement. The company provided developers with over three years to update their apps to remove any reliance on the old APIs, and replace them with the relevant support in the new API.
The new Custom Search API is a much better solution all round – being more powerful and more flexible at the same time. “Google Custom Search enables you to create a search engine for your website, your blog, or a collection of websites,” explains Google. “You can configure your engine to search both webpages and images. You can fine-tune the ranking, add your own promotions, and customize the look and feel of the search results.”
One thing which might catch the eye of some developers is that you can even “monetize the search by connecting your engine to your Google AdSense account.”
Google hasn’t said what developers who still use these APIs should do come February 15th, but expect some broken functionality if you refuse to update. If you want to know more about the new API, and how to get started with it, head right this way.
Are you still using the old search APIs for any reason? Explain yourself in the comments.
