Google has quietly axed the web services API to its eponymous search engine. The stealth move was made without any announcement, but visitors to the page now receive a blunt message, backdated to 5 December, advising them that the SOAP API is no longer supported.

The service was launched in spring 2002, giving developers a limited chance to develop applications using data drawn from Google's main search index. Amazon.com followed (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/07/18/amazon_opens_web_services_kimono/) with its own web services interface weeks later. Both companies used SOAP, or Simple Object Access Protocol, the much-hyped web services protocol that is anything but simple.

But Google restricted the number of queries that could be made using the API to 1,000 searches a day, and 10 results per query. More recently, the accuracy of the results it returned has been criticised (http://www.seoadvice.ca/seo-searchengine-marketing-news/2006_08_12-google-api-is-not-accurate/).

Google's original project manager Nelson Minar comments on the decision here (http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/googleSearchAPI.html).

Google now points developers to the more restrictive (http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.web-apis/browse_thread/thread/2e4356e323e3783a/f5d73ed1f0d49286#f5d73ed1f0d49286) AJAX API instead.

"The AJAX Search API is better suited for search-based web applications and supports additional features like Video, News, Maps, and Blog search results," Google said. ®

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