Google Data » Adam Feldman

Fall Housekeeping

Adam Feldman — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:57:00 +0000

When we introduced this blog over four years ago, the term AJAX was only a year old, and Google had exactly one relevant API . Ajax has since become a mainstream part of the Web, and our family of APIs has grown. Like many growing families, we’ve accumulated a lot of cruft over the years, and have outgrown our first home. Time for some housekeeping.

API Documentation - Now easier to find and use
We’ve reorganized our documentation to make it easier to find what you’re looking for, based on what you want to do. We used to group our APIs based on technology - for instance, there were Google Data APIs and AJAX APIs. Now, you’ll see that each API has been given its own place, including its own documentation pages. This new documentation has been created from the ground up to provide a better experience for people coding against the APIs. We’ve also organized these more logically by product, such as moving the Book Search API into the Books family of APIs, and added many more samples to help you get started.

A fond farewell
In the spirit of consolidation, we’ll be retiring this blog in favor of the Google Code Blog. By concentrating on fewer blogs, we’ll be able to keep the blog fresher and help make sure that as wide an audience as possible is able to benefit from our posts. We’ll continue using tags, so that you can subscribe to your favorite APIs and focus on the content that most interests you (though we hope you’ll check in occasionally to see what new stuff you might be missing).

Show your support for the Code blog by hopping over to read about the new Google APIs console and Custom Search API, and also say good-bye to the Web and Local Search APIs, which are being deprecated. Full post here.

Posted by: Adam Feldman, Product Manager

Fall Housekeeping

Adam Feldman — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:57:00 +0000

Increase site efficiency by retrieving just your preferred number of results

Adam Feldman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:42:00 +0000

When using any of the searchers available in the Search API, four results are returned by default. Historically, it has been possible to request a large set of eight results (or ten for filter Custom Search Engines), but that’s it. We understand that there are many use cases for this API, and some of them require a finer grain of control over the number of results displayed.

For instance, with the JavaScript API, you can use .setResultSetSize(1) or .setResultSetSize(6) in addition to using the enum to request a SMALL_RESULTSET or LARGE_RESULTSET. When using the RESTful interface, you can also use any integer from 1 to 8 with the rsz parameter.

With this addition, you can now request an arbitrary number of results, based on the exact number you need. By requesting only the results you’re going to show to the end-user, you can make your site or app more efficient. Also, this will control the cursor values that can be used to retrieve subsequent pages of results (and impact paging in the Custom Search element).

For more details, check out the documentation, and if you have any questions, stop by our IRC channel and support forum.

Increase site efficiency by retrieving just your preferred number of results

Adam Feldman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:42:00 +0000

Even more ways for developers to optimize with AdSense

Adam Feldman — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:37:00 +0000

Last year, we announced that developers can earn revenue by showing ads in two of our products, the GoogleBar for Local Searches on a Google Map and the Custom Search element for site-restricted and other curated searches. Today, we're happy to announce two new AdSense product updates to help monetize your website.

AdSense for search ads only
AdSense for search allows publishers to add Google search functionality to their site and monetize from search ads. The Custom Search element is a prime example. However, despite the power and flexibility of the element, you may want to show ads next to your own non-Google search results. With AdSense for search ads only, developers can now include AdSense for search ads on their pages, paired with their own homegrown search results.

AdSense for Ajax
The other side of AdSense is ads targeted to content on your site. In this case, developers turn to AdSense for content. But what if your content isn't crawlable by search engines or uses Ajax to dynamically update without a page refresh? Now you can deliver AdSense for content ads via AdSense for Ajax, which allows you to give hints about your uncrawlable content. Even better, it allows you to refresh the ads dynamically when there is a context change.

If your site is a good fit for either, or both, of these offerings, sign-up for AdSense for Ajax or AdSense for search ads only today! Learn more about them from the AdSense Blog post.

By Adam Feldman and Mike Brandell, AdSense Team

Google Feed API — Now with instant gratification

Adam Feldman — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:19:00 +0000

One of Google's most popular APIs is our Feed API. This API is found all over the web, making any feed content available for developers to embed on their sites.

A problem with embedding content in this manner is that there's no good way to make sure that your visitors see the freshest data, regardless of how long they stay on your page. Of course, you could try polling (also known as the "are we there yet?" method), repeatedly reloading the feed to see if the content has changed. This technique is generally a waste of bandwidth and doesn't always result in very low latency.

Instead, we've got something better. I'm pleased to announce a preview of a brand new version of the Feed API, which includes push updates. With this new version, you'll be able to make the latest feed data available to your visitors - when it's available - without polling or requiring a page refresh. The best part is that this will work with any PubSubHubbub enabled feed.

Here's a short demonstration of what I'm talking about:

As the video shows, this new version works much like the older Feed API. But instead of loading the existing feed data, you actually subscribe to the feed, and your callback is executed any time new feed data comes in.

Let's see how this works. First, you must load the API (just like before, except now v2):

google.load("feeds",  "2");

Now, subscribe to the feed you're interested in and give the callback to be executed:

var feed = new google.feed.push.Feed("example.com/atom.xml");
feed.subscribe(myCallback);

And, finally, you need to write the callback method that is run every time there's an update. In this example, we just display each new entry title as it comes in:

function myCallback() {
  var container = document.getElementById("feed");
  for (var i = 0; i < result.feed.entries.length; i++) {
    var div = document.createElement("div");
    div.appendChild(document.createTextNode(result.feed.entries[i].title));
    container.appendChild(div);
  }
}

For a running example you can try out, check out the Code Playground.

We want to encourage you to experiment and build innovative applications with this new API - but since we don't know how it will be used, we can't quite open the floodgates yet. Therefore, we're initially making it available on a sign-up basis. Please fill out this form, telling us a little about how you'd like to use this API, and we'll try to give you access as soon as possible. Also, please remember that this is a Code Labs version, and therefore it may change or be removed at any time.

After we get some data from this experimental period we'll be able to open it up to everyone. Once you've begun experimenting, be sure to stop by our support forum or IRC channel to share your creations with everyone. If you'd like to learn more about how this API works, our Google I/O session will be posted to YouTube soon.

Posted by: Brett Bavar, Software Engineer and Adam Feldman, Product Manager

Google Feed API — Now with instant gratification

Adam Feldman — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:19:00 +0000

google.load("feeds",  "2");

Now, subscribe to the feed you're interested in and give the callback to be executed:

var feed = new google.feed.push.Feed("example.com/atom.xml");
feed.subscribe(myCallback);

And, finally, you need to write the callback method that is run every time there's an update. In this example, we just display each new entry title as it comes in:

function myCallback() {
  var container = document.getElementById("feed");
  for (var i = 0; i < result.feed.entries.length; i++) {
    var div = document.createElement("div");
    div.appendChild(document.createTextNode(result.feed.entries[i].title));
    container.appendChild(div);
  }
}

New Google Web Elements released

Adam Feldman — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:49:00 +0000

Today we've added four new Google Web Elements: Sidewiki, Checkout, Wave and Virtual Keyboard. These are all designed to help you quickly and easily integrate Google products into your website.

Sidewiki element

Google Sidewiki makes it easy for visitors of your website to share helpful information with each other. Unlike regular comments, all Sidewiki entries are ranked by usefulness so that the best ones are shown first. The element was built entirely on the Sidewiki API and can be customized in many ways to fit into your site. Sidewiki originally launched as a feature of Google Toolbar and as a Chrome extension - this element is our newest step in making Sidewiki more open and accessible across the web. If you'll be using the element on your site, let us know via @googlesidewiki on Twitter!

If you're looking for a way to add commenting to an otherwise static page, the Google Sidewiki element gives you an easy and simple way to collect and display comments about a page. One of the new and exciting features of the Sidewiki element is that it allows visitors to leave a comment even if they do not have Sidewiki or Google Toolbar installed. Like all Sidewiki entries, the comments in the element will be ranked to show the most useful items more prominently.

Checkout element

The Google Checkout element allows you to quickly and easily create an online store using a spreadsheet. Once you have a Google Checkout merchant account, you just have to add details for each item you're selling into a Google Spreadsheet, then use the wizard and copy/paste the code into your website. The element is compatible with Blogger, Google Sites, iGoogle, and personal websites where HTML can be modified, but doesn't require any programming skills or experience. In fact, you can get your first online store up and running in under five minutes.

Wave element

The Google Wave element enables you to quickly drop a wave -- a shared workspace -- onto your own website. The wave could be used for many different things, including: encouraging collaborative discussion among the visitors, or as a means of publishing content on the page. For deeper integrations of waves onto your own site, please check out the recently improved Wave Embed API. For more information on embedding waves, see the Google Wave Developer Blog post.

Virtual Keyboard element

Adding a virtual keyboard to your site just got easier with the Google Virtual Keyboard element. After choosing a keyboard layout, copy and paste the HTML into your page and voila, a virtual keyboard will be able to enter characters into any text input or text area on your page. If you've never heard a virtual keyboard, it's an on screen keyboard which translates the input from one keyboard layout to another and it allows users to type their own languages on foreign keyboards or by clicking the on screen display.

Google Web Elements are great for folks who don't have much time or experience. However, even for advanced developers, elements are a great starting point, as most are backed by an underlying API to give you even more control over the content or look and feel. Take a look at all of the elements at http://www.google.com/webelements and stop by our help forum if you have any questions.

By Jeff Scudder and Adam Feldman, Google Web Elements Team

Transliteration API adds 6 more languages

Adam Feldman — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:58:00 +0000

We're excited to announce the addition of 6 new languages (Greek, Russian, Serbian, Sanskrit, Amharic, Tigrinya) to the Transliteration API. Using Google Transliteration you can convert Roman characters to their phonetic equivalent in your language. Note that this is not the same as translation — it's the sound of the words that are converted from one alphabet to the other.

Transliteration API allows this functionality to be available to all websites, which will make it easier for you to add transliteration capabilities to textfields on your webpages. Using this customizable API, you can enable users of your website to type 19 languages. For more information, please take a look at the documentation and samples at our code playground. If you're looking for a finer level of control on your web pages, also check out the low-level interface to transliteration, and the font rendering support APIs.

Google Transliteration is integrated into several Google properties and we have bookmarklets in addition to API to extend this capability to other websites. Please try these out and let us know what you think and how you're using it.

Posted by: Kuntal Loya and Ajay Somani, Software Engineers

Transliteration API adds 6 more languages

Adam Feldman — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:58:00 +0000

We're excited to announce the addition of 6 new languages (Greek, Russian, Serbian, Sanskrit, Amharic, Tigrinya) to the Transliteration API. Using Google Transliteration you can convert Roman characters to their phonetic equivalent in your language. Note that this is not the same as translation — it's the sound of the words that are converted from one alphabet to the other.

Rendering custom data in the Custom Search element

Adam Feldman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:19:00 +0000

Last year we introduced Rich Snippets in Custom Search, allowing you to define your own custom attributes that we'll index and return with your custom search results. A few months later we showed you how to render some of these rich snippets in your Custom Search element. Sure, this was a powerful way to let your visitors see thumbnails or interact with the results via actions. But we felt it was still too constrained. It is with great pleasure that today we're announcing that you now have full rendering control of all your metadata in the Custom Search element.

What do I mean? If a picture is worth a thousand words, an example is worth a thousand pictures. Here's a fully customized element, showcasing results and metadata from Scribd.com:

The results really jump out at you, huh? The thumbnails really help users see what they're looking at, but we've shown you those before. Same with the Download action links by each result. But never before could you include arbitrary, per-result metadata with your Google Custom Search results so easily. Notice the author, length, views and date information in each result. There's even an icon representing each result's document type.

So how can you add this to your page? Let's take a look.

First, you need to include custom attributes within your webpages, either via microformats, RDFa, or a special markup called PageMaps. A PageMap identifies specific attributes that Google recognizes and indexes, and then returns along with search results. Our prior blog post on Structured Custom Search tells you how to add PageMaps to your site. Please keep in mind that your site needs to be re-indexed, which can take some time. Therefore, your PageMaps might not show up immediately.

Once your custom attributes have been indexed, you're ready to tell the element how to render them. If you don't already have the element on your page, you can add it with a few lines:

Here's the Scribd.com sample, with only the default rich snippet inclusion:

It looks okay, but let's make it better.

We have to override the default rendering, by adding this line to the onLoadCallback:

google.search.Csedr.addOverride("mysite_");

Now, create a div to hold all of the rendering information - put it right above the div that the element uses:

Okay, now that everything's set up, it's time for the good part. First off, let's try shrinking the thumbnails a bit. Inside the div that was just added above, and tell the element to render the images at 48x48 pixels:

This replaces the default thumbnail rendering code with a similar version that sets the image dimensions directly.

Here's the same sample with the above code added:

Now it's time to add the new content and tweak the rendering of the basic content, too:


  data-vars="{longUrl:function() {
    var i = unescapedUrl.indexOf(visibleUrl);
    return i < 1 ? visibleUrl : unescapedUrl.substring(i);}}">

  





          
                  data-body="render('thumbnail',richSnippet,{url:unescapedUrl,target:target})">

            
        
                      data-body="html(title)">
        

        

        

        
          
          By   -
           pages -
           views
           - last modified  
        


                  data-body="render('action',richSnippet,{url:unescapedUrl,target:target})">

Voila! The sample is now complete, and here's how it looks:

This example is a bit more complex. It shows how to use the render() function to call other code, and also how you can include any JavaScript logic. You can even define internal functions, such as longUrl().

Didn't quite catch all of that or want to do even more? Check out the documentation.

The best part of announcing new features like this is seeing what innovative implementations people come up with. Don't keep us waiting - come show off your handiwork in our support forum or IRC channel!

Posted by: David Gibson, Software Engineer and Adam Feldman, Product Manager

Rendering custom data in the Custom Search element

Adam Feldman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:19:00 +0000

Here's the Scribd.com sample, with only the default rich snippet inclusion:

It looks okay, but let's make it better.

We have to override the default rendering, by adding this line to the onLoadCallback:

google.search.Csedr.addOverride("mysite_");

Now, create a div to hold all of the rendering information - put it right above the div that the element uses:

This replaces the default thumbnail rendering code with a similar version that sets the image dimensions directly.

Here's the same sample with the above code added:

Now it's time to add the new content and tweak the rendering of the basic content, too:


  data-vars="{longUrl:function() {
    var i = unescapedUrl.indexOf(visibleUrl);
    return i < 1 ? visibleUrl : unescapedUrl.substring(i);}}">

  





          
                  data-body="render('thumbnail',richSnippet,{url:unescapedUrl,target:target})">

            
        
                      data-body="html(title)">
        

        

        

        
          
          By   -
           pages -
           views
           - last modified  
        


                  data-body="render('action',richSnippet,{url:unescapedUrl,target:target})">

Voila! The sample is now complete, and here's how it looks:

Posted by: David Gibson, Software Engineer and Adam Feldman, Product Manager

Restricting by licenses now available in the Image Search API

Adam Feldman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:38:00 +0000

I'm always amazed at the creative ways developers use Google's APIs. I'm always pleased when we are able to add a new feature to the API, as I know that someone, somewhere will do something cool and unexpected with it. The latest addition is to the Image Search API. You can now restrict results by various licenses applied to each image.

There are two different ways to use this feature. In the JavaScript API, you can restrict your results to one of four common licenses (just like on Google Image Search). This is done using the setRestriction method, after creating your Image Search searcher. Here's how to restrict to images which have been labeled for reuse with modification:

var searcher = new google.search.ImageSearch();
searcher.setRestriction(google.search.ImageSearch.RESTRICT_RIGHTS,
                        google.search.ImageSearch.RIGHTS_MODIFICATION);

You can experiment with a live example of this in our Code Playground.

If you're using the JSON API, you can use the as_rights optional parameter to tell the API to include or exclude certain attributions. To perform the same restriction as above, try adding this to your requests:

&as_rights=
 (cc_publicdomain|cc_attribute|cc_sharealike|cc_noncommercial).-(cc_nonderived)

For a full list of the attribute combinations for each type of license, perform an appropriately restricted search on Google Image Search's advanced search and take a look at the as_rights parameter in the URL on the results page.

Note: Images returned with this filter may still have conditions on the license for use. Please remember that violating copyright is strictly prohibited by the API Terms of Use. For more details, see this article.

Please come visit our IRC channel and support forum and let us know how you've used this feature in your site or app!

Restricting by licenses now available in the Image Search API

Adam Feldman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:38:00 +0000

var searcher = new google.search.ImageSearch();
searcher.setRestriction(google.search.ImageSearch.RESTRICT_RIGHTS,
                        google.search.ImageSearch.RIGHTS_MODIFICATION);

&as_rights=
 (cc_publicdomain|cc_attribute|cc_sharealike|cc_noncommercial).-(cc_nonderived)

Please come visit our IRC channel and support forum and let us know how you've used this feature in your site or app!

Media RSS support added to the Feed API

Adam Feldman — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:15:00 +0000

More and more sites are adding support for MediaRSS to include images, videos and other types of multimedia files. Today, we're announcing that the Google Feed API now includes this metadata in the response. This content is now included in the JSON and XML results returned by the API. For more details on the result format, check out the documentation.

Please note that complete MediaRSS content is generally only available in feed entries newer than February 1, 2010.

Questions? Comments? If you're attending Google I/O, come meet the team and learn more about the Feed API at our Office Hours. If you can't wait that long, there's always our IRC channel and support forum.

Media RSS support added to the Feed API

Adam Feldman — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:15:00 +0000

Helping you help us help you

Adam Feldman — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:25:00 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous post, we've taken several measures to help differentiate legitimate API traffic from bad requests. To help us serve you better, I'm pleased to announce a new way for you to identify your request as harmful. Beginning today, please include the &evil=true parameter in your API requests if you're one of the bad guys.

How does this work in practice? Here's an example query which lets Google know that you're intending to use the API for nefarious purposes. This way, we can respond to your request in the appropriate manner as efficiently as possible.

Note: In order to encourage adoption as quickly as possible, we are requiring all bad requests to include the evil bit by the end of today, April 1.

Helping you help us help you

Adam Feldman — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:25:00 +0000

New Parameter for Server Side API Calls

Adam Feldman — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:10:00 +0000

Over the last several years, you've helped make Google's AJAX APIs incredibly successful. Not surprisingly, however, there are some people who try to take advantage of these free APIs by using them in ways that they were not designed for, abuse which is prohibited by the Terms of Use. Specifically, some servers are making countless requests - requests not made on the behalf of an end-user - in an attempt to scrape data from the APIs.

To help us discourage this behavior without affecting legitimate developers, we're adding a new parameter to the RESTful interface, userip. With this parameter, developers have the option of supplying the IP address of the end-user on whose behalf they are making the API request. Doing so will help us distinguish this legitimate server-side traffic from the more abusive scraping in which there are no end-users.

Use of this new parameter is *not* required. However, if it is not included with server-side requests, those requests are more likely to be interpreted and automatically blocked as abuse, especially in situations where a server is sending a high volume of traffic to the API. Additional safeguards you can take include setting setting a valid HTTP referer (as required by our Terms of Use) and using an API key. These additional measures will help us contact you in case there are problems with your website or application (sometimes a programming error results in massive traffic, forcing us to block your access if we are unable to contact you). In choosing to utilize this parameter, please be sure that you're in compliance with any local laws, including any laws relating to disclosure of personal information being sent.

Check the documentation for usage of the new parameter. We'd love to hear any comments, questions or problems you're having in the support forum.

New Parameter for Server Side API Calls

Adam Feldman — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:10:00 +0000

Check the documentation for usage of the new parameter. We'd love to hear any comments, questions or problems you're having in the support forum.

Behind the scenes with two AJAX API Developers

Adam Feldman — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:59:00 +0000

We enjoy featuring real-world applications that show how versatile the AJAX APIs can be. Below we're highlighting two very different apps and the developers who built them:

AroundMe
AroundMe is an iPhone application where the AJAX APIs are central to the user experience. Specifically, the app utilizes the Local Search API to enable users to find information about their surroundings. In the videos below, Marco Pifferi (the developer behind AroundMe) gives a demo of his app, his thoughts on using the AJAX APIs, and tips for integrating them in mobile apps.

Mibbit
Mibbit is a web-based chat application that uses the AJAX APIs to enhance the chat experience. The language APIs help users to translate their messages into a number of different languages. Mibbit also uses the Maps API and YouTube API to display embedded maps or YouTube videos if a user includes a Maps or YouTube URL in their chat. Jimmy Moore, creator of Mibbit, walks through Mibbit in his video below.

Do you have a great app that uses the AJAX APIs? Submit a video about it and we may feature it on this blog. Questions? Stop by our support forum or IRC channel.

Behind the scenes with two AJAX API Developers

Adam Feldman — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:59:00 +0000

Introducing the Virtual Keyboard API

Adam Feldman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:07:00 +0000

It is often difficult for Internet users to input text in many non-Latin script-based languages for a variety of reasons. The correct keyboard layout may not be installed on the computer they're using - sometimes such a layout may not be well developed or widely available. This poses a challenging problem for web developers because there is no way they can ensure that their users have access to this very basic input technology. Our Transliteration API can help, but requires that the user know multiple languages.

Right on the heels of introducing support for translating Persian (Farsi), we've added a new Virtual Keyboard API into the Google AJAX Language API to further assist with text input. With this, developers can help their users input text without relying on the right software being installed on the computer they happen to be using.

It couldn't be easier to get this on your page. Simply load the right package:

google.load("elements", "1", {
 packages: "keyboard"
});

Then create a keyboard, specifying the keyboard layout and text field to bind to:

var kbd = new google.elements.keyboard.Keyboard(
 [google.elements.keyboard.LayoutCode.Arabic],
 ['myTextArea']);

And here's what it looks like:

This gives you the control to provide a better user experience, even for multilingual websites. By creating multiple keyboards with different layouts, each text field can be bound to the appropriate keyboard - and the user will see only the keyboard attached to whichever text field has the focus.

But don't take my word for it - check out a sample for yourself. Notice that in addition to allowing users to click on the virtual keyboard, it also temporarily transforms the key assignments on their physical keyboard, allowing rapid typing for those users accustomed to a given layout.

With this initial release, we are launching 5 language layouts. They are:

Arabic (العربية)
Hindi (हिन्दी)
Polish (Polski)
Russian (Русский)
Thai (ไทย)

We plan to roll out support for more keyboard layouts in the future. But in the meantime, read through the class reference and see the rest of the Code Playground samples.

After you've had time to experiment, let us know what you think and which other layouts you'd like to see. Feedback is always welcome in our support forum and IRC channel.

Arabic Transliteration added to the AJAX Language API

Adam Feldman — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Last year we launched the Transliteration API as an addition to the AJAX Language API. This gave users the ability to transliterate (the process of phonetically converting words from one script into another) text into several Indic languages using a normal English keyboard.

We're happy to announce that we've now added Arabic to the list of supported languages. Now, you can allow your users to easily input Arabic-language text into any text field or text area on your web page without switching to a non-Latin alphabet keyboard - just like on the Labs page. For example, if the user types 'mar7aban bekom', the API will transliterate each word, with the result 'مرحبا بكم' (Arabic for welcome). The API will even automatically adjust the direction of the text area to support this right-to-left language.

Take a look at the documentation and then head over to the Code Playground to give it a try for yourself. If you have any questions, stop by the Google AJAX API developer forum or IRC channel.

Arabic Transliteration added to the AJAX Language API

Adam Feldman — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:23:00 +0000

AJAX Custom Search Gadget on Blogger

Adam Feldman — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:06:00 +0000

The AJAX Search gadget for Blogger is now available to all users on Blogger.com. This gadget accesses a Custom Search Engine (CSE) that is created automatically for your blog and provides search results inline, with the look and feel of your blog. You can get all this with just a few clicks from the Blogger control panel.

One cool feature of the gadget is the 'Linked From Here' feature that searches the pages you've linked to from your blog posts. As you create new posts, we automatically update your search engine to include all the linked pages, as well as all the pages linked from your link lists and blog lists. Check out the gadget — the search results match the look and feel of your blog and show up inline, as shown in the screenshot below. You can click a button to dismiss the results when you are done, and go back to reading the current post.

If you are not using Blogger, you can still create something similar for your website using the Custom Search element (read more about this new element at the Custom Search blog).

Easy as 1-2-3 – introducing Google Web Elements

Adam Feldman — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:54:00 +0000

Today at Google I/O, we launched Google Web Elements with one goal in mind - making life easier for developers. Google Web Elements make it incredibly simple to add Google products to your site, app or blog. It's so easy, you'll feel like you're cheating. Inspired by the convenience of embeddable YouTube videos, Google Web Elements allow you to add products like Google Custom Search, Google Docs, and Google Maps to your website with the simplicity of copy and paste. For instance, here's the new Google News element:

Each element is designed to help you get started quickly without spending time on the deep technical details. Yet behind it all, Google Web Elements are powered by Google's scalable and flexible developer APIs, offering a world of customization just beneath the surface, keeping up with your site as it grows.

For more details, check out the Google Code and Custom Search blogs. Google Web Elements are already available for eight of our most popular products, with more soon to follow. To get started, visit the Google Web Elements homepage and please be sure to let us know what you'd like to see us work on next.

Want to know what else is going on at Google I/O? Follow us on twitter @googleio and twazzup.

Updated Local Search Control used in brand new GoogleBar

Adam Feldman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:50:00 +0000

A much requested feature, the Local Search Control now includes ads when a search is performed. Users will benefit from seeing targeted and relevant sponsored results, and you can benefit by sharing in the revenue of including these results on your site. Ads aren't the only thing that's new - there's also a new (and, we hope you agree, better) UI:

This new Local Search Control has been used in a brand new version of the GoogleBar (part of the Maps API). In almost all cases, the GoogleBar provides the ideal way to add searches to Google Maps. The GoogleBar, too, includes advertisements with the results. In order to share in the revenue, you need to supply your AdSense publisher ID. You can use your existing ID or sign up for a new AdSense account. Once you have an account, get your AdSense publisher ID and include it as an option when you set up the GoogleBar:

Optionally, you may also specify an AdSense for Search channel (more info on channels), the Ad Safety Level to associate with your advertising, and the language in which to display results. For a full list of options and details on including them, see the GoogleBar documentation. Note: currently ads only appear for results that are inline - this limitation should be removed within a few weeks.

If you'd like to learn more about the new underlying, low-level Local Search Control, the reference documentation and Code Playground examples contain everything you need to know.

For more information, see this recent post on the Maps API blog. Questions or comments? Please visit the AJAX API and Maps API discussion groups.

Experimental Features

Adam Feldman — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:20:00 +0000

As part of Tuesday's Google Code Labs announcement, the AJAX Search API became part of the graduating class. We're still working with our lawyerly team members to update our Terms of Use to include a 3-year deprecation policy. If you're curious what that policy will look like, take a look at Section 4.5 of the Visualization API terms -- it will be similar to that.

You'll see that an exception to the deprecation policy will be features marked "experimental." This label is for experimental features that the deprecation policy does not apply to and therefore they can be changed or removed in the future, even if the deprecation policy applies to the rest of the API. You may have seen in the AJAX Search API reference that we have a few such features already, so we wanted to make sure you knew which ones those were.

The current experimental features include all of Book Search and the "image type" restriction of Image Search. We've done our best to clearly mark all of these as experimental in the docs.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Google Code Labs and the SOAP Search API

Adam Feldman — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:59:00 +0000

As recently announced, a new program was introduced today for Google Code Labs. We're proud that the AJAX Search API has already graduated from Labs, which demonstrates our long-term commitment to it.

Also part of that announcement was that the SOAP Search API will be retired on August 31st, 2009. It was deprecated in 2006, when we stopped accepting new developers for the API. Since then, it's been steadily declining in usage and we believe the majority of use cases are sufficiently handled by the more comprehensive AJAX Search API.

In many ways, this AJAX API is a superset of the SOAP API, providing access to local, news, image, and video search results, among others, in addition to web search. Therefore, we encourage SOAP developers to explore our documentation and consider migrating their applications.

Please keep in mind that the AJAX APIs exist for the benefit of end-users; several of their features and usage guidelines are designed with them in mind. For instance, each search performed with the API must be the direct result of a user action. Automated searching is strictly prohibited, as is permanently storing any search results. Please refer to the Terms of Use for more detail.

And for developers new to the AJAX Search API, don't forget to check out our discussion group, a good resource if you have questions or need more help. Welcome aboard!

Adding Google News to Your Website

Adam Feldman — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Today we are launching a new extension to the AJAX Search API, a Google News-based element. This element embeds a news slideshow on your site, letting your users see headlines and previews from Google News based on queries that you've selected. Here is an example of the NewsShow in action:

It couldn't be easier to add this to your site. Simply include this iframe:


        frameborder="0" width="300" height="250"
        marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">

The element comes in two standard sizes: 728x90 and 300x250.

Adding a NewsShow to your site in this way allows you to customize its shape and content with URL arguments. Simply input your parameters into our wizard and we'll build the code for you. Or, for greater control over the NewsShow's look and feel, you can call the classes directly. Check out the documentation for details and the Code Playground to try your hand at customizing.

As always, let us know what you think in the Google AJAX API developer forum.

Note: Earlier this evening a reader pointed out a typo in the iframe snippet which has since been corrected.

Local Search results now include China

Adam Feldman — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:58:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce the addition of local search for China. For users already using the AJAX Search API for local search, you should now be able to search for businesses in China without having to make any changes. Try typing "hotels in Beijing" in your site or app which uses the Google AJAX Search API. You should see some results:

To take advantage of local search functionality, take a look at the AJAX Search API. The samples here are also particularly useful.

If you have any feedback or comments, please drop by our Google Group or new IRC channel (irc details can be found at the bottom of this post).

New Languages for Translate and POST Interface

Adam Feldman — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:37:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce two enhancements to our AJAX Language API.

Thanks to the great efforts of the Google Translate team, the API is now able to support 11 additional languages for translation:

Catalan (ca)
Filipino (tl)
Hebrew (iw)
Indonesian (id)
Latvian (lv)
Lithuanian (lt)
Serbian (sr)
Slovak (sk)
Slovenian (sl)
Ukrainian (uk)
Vietnamese (vi)

Also, we'd like to introduce the new POST interface. Among other things, this can be used to send longer URLs by implementing a JavaScript bridge to, for example, Flash or Java using the RESTful interface. For additional information, take a look around our Google Group.

If you have not already done so, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the AJAX Language API terms .

Clarifying our TOS to allow additional uses

Adam Feldman — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:58:00 +0000

As the AJAX APIs have undergone tremendous growth and adoption, developers have used these APIs in many new and exciting ways. When things move fast, sometimes details get left behind, and our Terms of Service has not been keeping up with the rapid rate of change. We want to make it clear that you can use these APIs in the context of websites, gadgets, mobile apps, desktop client apps, etc. In response to your feedback, we've dusted off and updated the AJAX Search API terms and the AJAX Language API terms. The primary change was replacing "website" with "Property" that's defined as a "website, application, or other product".

As always, thank you for the feedback. Keep your comments and suggestions coming! We look forward to all of your amazing creations using the Google AJAX APIs.