It appears that Google have rendered a notable part of CPAN null and void to new users. As of December 2006 they abandoned the SOAP API and the API Key that went with it. Anyone with an existing key can still use the SOAP API with that key, however, it leaves those of us that never got a key high and dry. Thus meaning the likes of Net::Google and WWW::Search::Google (or any code using the SOAP API) are now completely redundant. :(
I figured that if they're taking away the ability to search Google via the SOAP API, then they must have relocated it elsewhere. And they sort of have, but also haven't. Now I may be misunderstanding all the documentation on their site about the various APIs, but when it comes to simple web searching, as you would through the standard www.google.co.uk (or www.google.com for non-UK readers) web portal, they appear to have disbanded any generic interface to it.
The first redirection is the AJAX Search API, but that ties you to a specific website. However my search requirements have nothing to do with website presentation, and more for a simple command line tool to retrieve some very specific results. The next redirection is Google Base Data, but despite giving the impression that it might be what I want, the examples are all for specific products or people and bare no resemblance to the same search query used in the web browser search box. Next in the chain was Google Data. Seeing as this is the core API to many of their other APIs, I was hopeful that this, somewhere, would open up the API to the simple search mechanism. But after much trawlling through the documentation, I have yet to find anything that specifically indicates that I can do a simple web search. Again the examples and demos don't return anything even close to the result set I'm looking for.
Google themselves state "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". At the moment they've failed via their APIs, as data returned is definitely not universal, their search data as a whole is mostly inaccessible and therefore renders the API route pretty useless. Even such a simple term as "Perl+Mongers" returns nothing! It's looking like I'll have to go back to the tried and trusted method of web scraping, which seems to be me to be a bit of step backwards and wastes rather more electrons that should be necessary.
I don't think I'm having good time with Google this year. Don't get me wrong, I think alot of what they have published for their APIs and Apps is a great start. But it would be nice to see them finished off.
It seems I'm not the only one disappointed by the service removal.
As I detailed in my column, I found Yahoo::Search to be far easier to work with from a program.
And no, I don't understand why Google is being more difficult here.
Re:Switch to Yahoo::Search instead
barbie on 2007-05-17T16:25:22
Funnily enough I was just investigating Yahoo::Search
;)
Google themselves state "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".
s/it universally accessible and useful/advertising money off of it/;
Re:google's mission statement
barbie on 2007-05-18T15:03:02
Why is making money such a bad thing? Aside from the electronic form, Google are not that different from how much of the media (printed newspapers, television, radio) has been working in advertising long before I was born (... that's a long time ago
;)). I wonder how much you use Google search in your web browser? That's a free service. There are plenty of other free services Google offer. Do you really begrudge them having a business model that also includes making money to pay for those free services, their staff and probably many other things I can't think of right now? Does the World Health Organisation pay your wages or do you work for free?
Every commercial business has to make money somehow, and personally I think Google have made theirs in a way that is largely unobtrusive, and have given back a lot more than probably every other news and advertising agency has over the last century.