South African site filtering added
June 14th 2008We've finally added a South African website filter to our Google Search. It filters all sites that are in the .za domain range. Unfortunately, we can't confirm whether or not the site is actually hosted in South Africa, as many .za domains are hosted internationally due to the exorborant hosting prices we have here in South Africa. But it should definitely make it alot easier to find them!
Enjoy, and happy searching!
To Answer Your Question
June 12th 2008Just to show everyone I'm not a Google fan boy, I've developed a new web service based upon the Yahoo! Answers API. This little gem is really something. Yahoo! Answers Service is a great resource for those in two minds. You can almost think of the Yahoo! Answers as a more helpfull Wikipedia. Where Wikipedia explains the inner most workings of the String Theory, Yahoo! Answers gives you opinions on whether Peanutbutter with Cheese will work on Toast. This is not to say Yahoo! Answers isn't the place for intellectual questions, it just shows how diverse the questions can be.
I suppose you can't really compare Wikipedia with Yahoo! Answers, but I feel Yahoo! Answers really has a place up with there with the elite information repositories. The idea builds upon a community based consortium, where the trade is intellectual knowledge. Whether it be helpful or not.
The process is pretty simple, you post a question, people respond with answers or opinions they feel are correct. The questioner can then decide on a best answer if someone has answered to their satisfaction. Otherwise, the question remains open for others to add their input. The process is fast, and for the most part works well.
We've provided a very basic Answer Search which utilises the Yahoo! Answers API. This allows our users to search for questions and view the answers. Of cause, no international bandwidth is required, so capped users don't have to miss out! I have some great ideas for this API, so keep an eye on our blog.
To end off, I must say the Yahoo! APIs availible have really grown into a great resource for developers, and you will definitly see more services based upon them.
Enjoy!
Our Google Web Search
June 8th 2008One of our first developments for the MyLocal.co.za site, is the Google Search. This utilises the fairly new Google Ajax Search API that took the place of the now deprecated Soap API. When it was first introduced by Google, although having some great new features, lacked the ability for use with server side languages such as PHP / ASP and JAVA. This has been addressed and brings the API into a new light. Currently, Google does not have a hosted presense in South Africa. This creates problems for many users who either run out of international bandwidth or have slow international access. Our integration with the API tackles both of these problems. By having our site hosted locally, we are able to provide the Google search without any international access. Not only that, the speed of searches are comparably faster due the backbone structures of our hosting solution.
Due to limitations on the API, our searches are restricted. The primary restriction is the ability to only retrieve 32 results for each search, with 8 results per page. However, I know with my own personal searches, if I haven't yet found what I'm looking for by the 3rd page, I normally refine my search query. The other restriction, is the lack of locality. We are unable to do a specific South African Sites only search. This can be overcome by starting the search with the words "South African" and then your query.
The Ajax Search API community is very active, along with the Google Team, and I'm hoping in the near future these restrictions will be lifted or adjusted to offer a better solution. As soon as they become availible, we'll be sure to make the changes for our users to benefit.
I hope users will enjoy this service, whether it's in the interim of waiting for a locally hosted Google web search, or as your primary point of searching.
