Google helps you crack its new API
After hearing from colleagues that Google is discontinuing its SOAP API in favour of an AJAX version, I decided to find out more; I ended up at the Google AJAX Search API page.
The move away from the SOAP API to a browser-dependent one is presumably intended to increase Google’s control over its search and to curtail the activities of SEOs and others trying to game their search ranking, so it’s amusing to see that the sample search widget in Google’s page gives as its third result an article entitled Cracking Google AJAX Search API:
I’ve taken a screen capture of the entire page.
Unfortunately, the article in question doesn’t really give any details. Still, it won’t be long before the AJAX API is cracked wide open. I guarantee it. And when it is, I bet we’ll be able to find the details via Google!
Update: I cracked it.
2006-12-19 12:24 UTC. Comments: 2.
Tieg
Wrote at 2006-12-19 16:57 UTC using Firefox 1.5.0.8 on Mac OS X:
LOL, an invitation to hack it—I wonder if this is some sort of hint that you can get a job there by deciphering their code. That uds_compiled.js file is pretty intimidating, although it doesn’t seem like it’d be that big of a project to rewrite it into something readable and … maybe write a Ruby API for it? :OPaul Battley
Wrote at 2006-12-19 17:08 UTC using Firefox 2.0 on Mac OS X:
I agree: I’m sure it’s not really that big a job. I’ve reverse-engineered Google JavaScript before (most recently to decipher the poorly-documented parameters in Google ads). It takes a few hours, but if you attack it in a systematic manner it’s usually possible to track the functionality through the code.Of course, Google have one advantage: they can change the script as often as they like, to keep their actual API a moving target.