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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the Google SOAP Search API? The Google SOAP Search API service is a beta web program that enables developers to easily find and manipulate information on the web. 2. Who is the Google SOAP Search API for? The Google SOAP Search API is for developers and researchers interested in using Google as a resource in their applications. 3. How does the Google SOAP Search API service work? Developers write software programs that connect remotely to the Google SOAP Search API service. Communication is performed via SOAP, an XML-based mechanism for exchanging typed information. 4. Why is the Google SOAP Search API useful? The Google SOAP Search API service gives you query access to Google's web search, enabling you to develop software that accesses billions of web documents that are constantly refreshed. 5. What functionality comes with the Google SOAP Search API? Developers can issue search requests to Google's index of billions of web pages and receive results as structured data, access information in the Google cache, and check the spelling of words. The Google SOAP Search API supports the same search syntax as the Google.com site. 6. What applications can I create using the Google SOAP Search API? That's totally up to you and your creative genius. (Keep in mind that this API is not for commercial use, though.) Some possibilities might include:
7. How many queries can I issue from my computer programs? Google provides each developer who registers to use the Google SOAP Search API service a limit of 1,000 queries per day. 8. How do I get access to the Google SOAP Search API service? You must first agree to the terms and conditions of the Google SOAP Search API service and create a Google Account. Google will then email you a license key to use with your Google SOAP Search API applications. Every time you make a call to the Google SOAP Search API service, you must include your license key. 9. How do I create a Google Account? You can create an account by visiting http://www.google.com/apis/ and following the instructions on the page. All you need to provide is your email address and a password. 10. Can I create more than one Google Account to get multiple license keys? No. The terms and conditions you agree to restrict you one account for your personal use. Users who attempt to create more than one account are subject to being banned from the Google SOAP Search API service. 11. I lost my license key. Can I get it back again? Yes, by logging into your Google Account. To do this, click on "Create Account". If you are currently logged in, Google will automatically re-send your license key to your email address. If you are not currently logged in, fill in the account creation form on the page. Enter the email address and password for your existing account, and Google will re-send your key. 12. Why is the daily limit only 1,000 queries? The Google SOAP Search API service is an experimental free program, so the resources available to support the program are limited. 13. Can I develop commercial applications using the Google SOAP Search API? The Google SOAP Search API terms of service. specifically state that you cannot create a commercial service using the Google SOAP Search API service. However, if you want to add search results to your website, you may be interested in our AdSense for Search service. 14. Where do I go if I have questions about using the Google SOAP Search API? You can discuss the Google SOAP Search API service in the Google SOAP Search API discussion forum. 15. What if I want to pay Google for the ability to issue more than 1,000 queries per day? Google is only offering the free beta service at this time and is not granting quota increases for this service. 16. Is Google providing a developer program? Developers are free to use the service and to discuss it on the Google SOAP Search API discussion forum. Google Groups are home for many other Google developer discussion forums, too. 17. Does Google provide technical support for the Google SOAP Search API? Google provides documentation and technical FAQs online. Also, you can submit questions and problem reports to the Google SOAP Search API discussion forum. Because this is a beta service, we do not provide email support. 18. Can I use the source code distributed in the Google SOAP Search API developer's kit? The developer's kit includes some example Google client Java code, a .NET programming example, and a WSDL file you can use to generate code if your environment supports it. The developer's kit contains some third-party libraries; your use of these libraries is subject to their terms and conditions. Google has included the licenses for these libraries in the developer's kit download package. 19. What does it mean to be a "beta" service? This means Google does not guarantee the availability of the service. Since this is an experimental service, Google may take the service down for maintenance, change the APIs in ways that may be incompatible with developer applications, or discontinue the service entirely. However, "beta" also means your input can have an impact on how the service is ultimately configured. If you have ideas about how to improve the Google SOAP Search API, please post them to the Google SOAP Search API discussion forum.
1. Is the Google SOAP Search API related to the Google Programming Contest? The Google SOAP Search API and the Google Programming Contest are separate efforts, although both happen to be oriented towards developers. 2. Can Google APIs be used to access Google Groups? Image search? Directory search? No. The Google SOAP Search API service can only be used to search Google's main index of billions of web pages. However, many other Google services also provide APIs. For details on the various APIs and developer tools we offer, go to http://code.google.com . 3. Does the Google SOAP Search API work with the Google Search Appliance or Google SiteSearch? No. However, there is a Google OneBox for Enterprise API that you might be interested in.
1. Does it cost anything to use the Google SOAP Search API? No. This is a free beta service. However your program is limited to issuing 1,000 requests per day to Google, and cannot be used for commercial applications. 2. Does Google have any plans to sell the Google SOAP Search API as a service? Not at this time.< However, you may also be interested in our AdSense for Search service.
1. How is the Google SOAP Search API implemented? Google SOAP Search API are implemented as a web service. The service supports several SOAP methods; these are described in an accompanying WSDL file that can be imported into your favorite web services programming environment. Alternately, you can use our custom Java library to call the service. 2. What is a web service? A web service is something you can call over the web from a program. For more background on web services, see http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a//webservices/2002/02/12/webservicefaqs.html. 3. What is SOAP? SOAP is the Simple Object Access Protocol. It is used for information exchange and RPC, usually (but not necessarily) over HTTP. More information can be found at: Developmentor SOAP FAQ: http://www.soaprpc.com/faqs/SoapFAQ.html W3C specifications: http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/ 4. What is WSDL? WSDL is the Web Service Description Language. It provides a formal description of a web service, much like CORBA's IDL. The WSDL file is all you need to know how to call the web service; toolkits can generate proxy code from a WSDL file directly. The official WSDL definition is at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl. 5. Why do I need a license key? The license key uniquely identifies you to Google. We use it to provide your daily limit of 1,000 free queries. 6. How do I get a license key? You must first create a Google Account. Once your account is created, Google will email you a license key to use with your Google SOAP Search API program(s). 7. What happens if I go over my limit of 1,000 queries? If you make more than 1,000 queries in a day, our server will respond with a SOAP Fault stating that you exceeded your daily query total. You might want to get some sleep and start querying again tomorrow. 8. Is there a limit on the number of results I can receive per query? Yes. You can retrieve a maximum of 10 results per query, and you cannot access information beyond the 1000th result for any given query. 9. Does this service work through HTTP proxies? Sometimes. The service should work through HTTP proxies, but in practice many HTTP proxies have trouble correctly forwarding SOAP. 10. How can I track the number of queries I have submitted each day? Developers need to perform their own tracking of their daily usage. 11. Can I submit source code to Google so it can be included in the kit? If you have written code you wish to share with the developer community, let people know by sending a message to the google.public.web-apis Google Group. 12. What's in the developer's kit? The kit contains a WSDL file describing the Google SOAP Search API service, a custom Java client library, documentation on how to use the service with Microsoft .NET or Perl, and example SOAP messages. Please take a look at README included in the kit for the most detailed description of the kit and the list of instructions. 13. What programming languages do you support? The service has been tested with Java (Apache SOAP and Apache Axis), Perl (SOAP::Lite version 0.52), Ruby (SOAP4R), and C# in MS Visual Studio .NET. The service has not been tested with clients in other languages but it should work with any language with web services support. 14. What can I do with the WSDL file? Many web services toolkits can take a WSDL file and automatically generate a client-side proxy to call the Google SOAP Search API. 15. Is the WSDL file publicly available online? Yes. You can find it at http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl. 16. Can I see some example SOAP messages? Check out the examples in the soap-samples directory in the developer kit. 17. How can I look at my own SOAP packets and debug my communication? There are many tools that let you "sniff" your SOAP packets on the wire, usually implemented as an HTTP proxy. We like the Apache Axis tool org.apache.axis.utils.tcpmon. 18. Why do you provide Java client code if it can be generated from WSDL? We wanted to provide the simplest possible start for developers; shipping a complete Java implementation was the easiest way to do that. The custom Java client also has some convenience features such as default values for seldom-used parameters. 19. What Java packages do I need to use to write a client? Everything you need to get started is in googleapi.jar. Advanced users may prefer to use their own Java SOAP implementations and use the WSDL file to generate client code. 20. What Perl packages do I need to use to write a client? SOAP::Lite version 0.52 or newer works well. 21. Why do I get the error "Wrong Boolean value 'false'"? There is a bug in SOAP::Lite versions prior to 0.52 that causes this error. Upgrade to a newer SOAP::Lite to eliminate this problem. 22. What languages in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET are supported? The service has been tested with a C# client auto-generated from WSDL by the wsdl.exe tool. It should work fine from any .NET language. 23. What C# packages do I need to use to write a client? You need the standard .NET framework; either from Visual Studio .NET or the Framework alone. 24. What is the exact sequence of steps needed to make a simple search client in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET?
25. Can I invoke the Google SOAP Search API from Office XP applications (e.g., Excel)? Currently, Office XP's SOAP implementation only supports simple SOAP types. The Google SOAP Search API service uses complex return types and therefore does not work with Office XP. 26. How do I make queries in languages other than English? The Google SOAP Search API support requests and responses in UTF-8, allowing you to make requests in all of the world's languages. The original release included parameters <ie> and <oe> for inputEncoding and outputEncoding. These parameters are no longer used and will be removed in a future release. The APIs still do not always return complete results for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; we are working to remedy this issue. |
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