Use Google Search without presenting Google.com?

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'd like to have a page in my app that allows the user to type in a box and have Google Search results appear... kind of like the inquisitor plugin for Safari. I'm looking at the Custom Web Search APIs but they don't seem quite right... they're laden with features I don't need and it seems to cost an awful lot (half a cent per search... meaning if I charge $1 for the app I'm losing money after 140 searches.)

So does anyone know how to utilize a Google Search without ever actually loading the Google webpage (and, ideally, for free.)

[KarlJay]

Does google have an option to have the output to a file or string? Maybe even not showing the screen, run the search, dump the results to a string, parse the string...

Aren't the google search results in an XML format?

What about all the sites that offer google searches only of their site, don't they use some kind of subset of google search?

When you say custom web search api, are you talking about google or some other company?

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by KarlJay

What about all the sites that offer google searches only of their site, don't they use some kind of subset of google search?

When you say custom web search api, are you talking about google or some other company?

Those custom website specific google search fields are what the Custom Web Search API generates. The API is from Google.

I'm wondering if Google offers some other API that would allow me to pass in a search string and get back the first five or so results without me having to take the user to Google.com in a UIWebView (and ideally without paying for it... I'd be willing to consider a price that was closer to 10K searches per dollar.)

[kage207]

Originally Posted by ArtOfWarfare

Those custom website specific google search fields are what the Custom Web Search API generates. The API is from Google.

I'm wondering if Google offers some other API that would allow me to pass in a search string and get back the first five or so results without me having to take the user to Google.com in a UIWebView (and ideally without paying for it... I'd be willing to consider a price that was closer to 10K searches per dollar.)

Bing is free. Or so says this site.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5...gle-search-api

I don't believe it though.
https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset...7-A49D98D29A44
Rather cheap per query.

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by kage207

Bing is free. Or so says this site.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5...gle-search-api

I don't believe it though.
https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset...7-A49D98D29A44
Rather cheap per query.

Here's the pricing I've found so far:

Google: 200 searches for $1
Bing: 500 searches for $1
Yahoo: 1250 for $1
FAROO: Free

I'm trying the FAROO website right now... I think I can power the web search in my app with this... maybe I'll have replacing FAROO with Google be an IAP? Except Google is so prohibitively expensive... eh, it looks like FAROO should theoretically improve if more people use it, so if my app ends up being popular then it'll get search results par with Google, right?

Edit: Interesting... FAROO sure litters your history... it looks like with each character you type it automatically inserts another page in your history...

[KarlJay]

I think the main reason they charge is because they track you and sell the info to advertisers. Bing gets much the same results for less than 1/2 the price. I'm kinda surprised that Bing would charge at all. Bing gave me $100 for using the Bing Cash Back program a few years ago. They were paying you to use Bing for online shopping.

Google can charge because they have the market nearly locked up, Bing should use this as a way into that market, but at the same time, you are using their search engine and should have to pay something or show ads or something.