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Ever since Google stopped the ability for new users to sign up for its SOAP based search API, I have noticed inconsistencies with the results returned from it. Although new sign ups have stopped, users who still possess API keys are able to run their applications using it.
Look at the following results when returning the number of competitors for a given keyword. I have compared the results of the Google Search API (SOAP) with Yahoo and actual Google Numbers. Do remember that results can change across Data Centers.
| Keyword | Google Search API | Yahoo API | Google Actual |
| apple ipod | 9,160,000 | 73,100,000 | 158,000,000 |
| cars | 29,600,000 | 463,000,000 | 483,000,000 |
| car parts | 7,080,000 | 137,000,000 | 106,000,000 |
| dog food | 3,580,000 | 59,700,000 | 73,100,000 |
| lawyers | 11,400,000 | 80,900,000 | 165,000,000 |
| searchengineland | 8,990 | 80,200 | 128,000 |
| sony | 23,500,000 | 305,000,000 | 399,000,000 |
| walmart | 1,570,000 | 14,600,000 | 23,800,000 |
The Google API results for competitors are way off, so does this mean that Google wants all SOAP API users to switch over to the AJAX based one? Possibly, however I ran some queries for pages indexed and the results were actually a lot more accurate.
| URL | Yahoo | MSN | Google Actual | |
| aol.com | 6,890,000 | 14,680,150 | 4,064,217 | 5,550,000 |
| ask.com | 241,000 | 537,397 | 85,653 | 241,000 |
| google.com | 7,610,000 | 24,870,092 | 1,628,312 | 7,040,000 |
| msn.com | 37,600,000 | 65,592,820 | 1,565,948 | 39,100,000 |
| yahoo.com | 101,000,000 | 823,133,053 | 3,931,774 | 94,500,000 |
Here are some great resources for the Google Search API (Search and AJAX based):
- http://battellemedia.com/archives/003212.php
- http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/weblog/web-development/programming-and-scripts/apis/google-search-api
- http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=AB073
- http://www.wwwsearchsolutions.com/google.php
- http://www.programmableweb.com/api/Google
- http://www.pluralsight.com/blogs/dbox/archive/2006/12/20/45379.aspx
- http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/google_depreciates_SOAP_API.html
- http://zamples.com/JspExplorer/samples/google.jsp
- http://www.dankarran.com/googleapi-phpsitesearch/
- http://www.pluralsight.com/blogs/dbox/archive/2006/12/20/45381.aspx
- http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/google-search-api-worms
- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/create-web-apps-on-top-of-google.html
- http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006996.html
- http://www.masternewmedia.org
- http://www.federatedmedia.net/tech/2006/12/google_search_api_dropped.php
- http://www.clonethegoogleapi.com/
- http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/06/google-search-api-20.html
- http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-12-18-n73.html
- http://googleajaxsearchapi.blogspot.com/
- http://ajaxsearch.typepad.com/
- http://ajaxsearch.blogspot.com/
- http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3635731
