Our Google Web Search
June 8th 2008, Posted in Google SearchOne 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.
