Google Data

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

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 a…

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.

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 understan…

Earlier this year, we launched the Tashkeel (Diacritization) service on Google Labs. I’m pleased to announce that we’ve added an experimental Diacritization component to the Google Language API. This is a simple JSON API which you can use to add diacritic symbols to strings of Arabic text.

To test it out, try clicking this link:
https://www.googleapis.com/language/diacritize/v1?lang=ar&message=مرحبا%20العالم&last_letter=false&callback=result

A URL-encoded string is supplied as the message parameter, and it’s returned by the API with diacritics included. These symbols are useful to people just learning the language and as an important pre-step for several text processing applications.

Right now, the API only supports Arabic, but we’re working on adding more languages, as well as a JavaScript API, so be sure to watch this blog for details. For more information, see the documentation and our post on the Google Arabia blog (you may want to click “view post in English”).

Earlier this year, we launched the Tashkeel (Diacritization) service on Google Labs. I’m pleased to announce that we’ve added an experimental Diacritization component to the Google Language API. This is a simple JSON API which you can use to add diac…

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 sur…

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 sur…

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

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 languag…

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:

By  –  pages –  views  – last modified

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 48×48 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 

  






    

      


        
          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

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:

By  –  pages –  views  – last modified

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 48×48 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 

  






    

      


        
          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

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 th…

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 th…

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 JSO…