Is there a working sample of the Google custom search rest API?
I need to create a screen which automates Google search. I know JavaScript and I'm trying to get GSE works.
I have a search engine and an API key. The problem is Google's documentation is cyclic i.e. pages point to each other. There is no working sample from where I can start my research.
Please help if you know of a working sample.
The documents I have read are:
Answer
I know this is an old question, but here is what I did to make the API results formatted like the Google Site Search used to give since they are ending the paid accounts and will have ads now. The API way has an option to pay still for over 100 searches per day, so going with that but had to format the results still, and used the existing one to build the css to do similar styling also.
Search form going to this page is just a simple:
<form action="search-results.htm" id="cse-search-box">
<div>
<input class="" name="q" type="text">
<input class="" type="submit">
</div>
</form>
and then the search results page:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
<title>JSON/Atom Custom Search API Example</title>
<!--<link href="default.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">-->
<link href="google.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="gsc-result-info" id="resInfo-0"></div>
<hr/>
<div id="googleContent"></div>
<script>
//Handler for response from google.
function hndlr(response) {
if (response.items == null) {
//Sometimes there is a strange thing with the results where it says there are 34 results/4 pages, but when you click through to 3 then there is only 30, so page 4 is invalid now.
//So if we get to the invalid one, send them back a page.
window.location.replace("searchresults.htm?start=" + (start - 10) + "&q=" + query);
return;
}
//Search results load time
document.getElementById("resInfo-0").innerHTML = "About " + response.searchInformation.formattedTotalResults + " results (" + response.searchInformation.formattedSearchTime + " seconds)";
//Clear the div first, CMS is inserting a space for some reason.
document.getElementById("googleContent").innerHTML = "";
//Loop through each item in search results
for (var i = 0; i < response.items.length; i++) {
var item = response.items[i];
var content = "";
content += "<div class='gs-webResult gs-result'>" +
"<table class='gsc-table-result'><tbody><tr>";
//Thumbnail image
if (item.pagemap.cse_thumbnail != null)
content += "<td class='gsc-table-cell-thumbnail gsc-thumbnail'><div class='gs-image-box gs-web-image-box gs-web-image-box-portrait'><a class='gs-image' href='" + item.link + "'>" +
"<img class='gs-image' class = 'gs-image-box gs-web-image-box gs-web-image-box-portrait' src='" + item.pagemap.cse_thumbnail[0].src + "'></a></td>";
//Link
content += "<td><a class='gs-title' href='" + item.link + "'>" + item.htmlTitle + "</a><br/>";
//File format for PDF, etc.
if (item.fileFormat != null)
content += "<div class='gs-fileFormat'><span class='gs-fileFormat'>File Format: </span><span class='gs-fileFormatType'>" + item.fileFormat + "</span></div>";
//description text and URL text.
content += item.htmlSnippet.replace('<br>','') + "<br/><div class='gs-bidi-start-align gs-visibleUrl gs-visibleUrl-long' dir='ltr' style='word-break:break-all;'>" + item.htmlFormattedUrl +"</div>" +
"<br/></td></tr></tbody></table></div>";
document.getElementById("googleContent").innerHTML += content;
}
//Page Controls
var totalPages = Math.ceil(response.searchInformation.totalResults / 10);
console.log(totalPages);
var currentPage = Math.floor(start / 10 + 1);
console.log(currentPage);
var pageControls = "<div class='gsc-results'><div class='gsc-cursor-box gs-bidi-start-align' dir='ltr'><div class='gsc-cursor'>";
//Page change controls, 10 max.
for (var x = 1; x <= totalPages && x<=10; x++) {
pageControls += "<div class='gsc-cursor-page";
if (x === currentPage)
pageControls += " gsc-cursor-current-page";
var pageLinkStart = x * 10 - 9;
pageControls+="'><a href='search-results.htm?start="+pageLinkStart+"&q="+query+"'>"+x+"</a></div>";
}
pageControls += "</div></div></div>";
document.getElementById("googleContent").innerHTML += pageControls;
}
//Get search text from query string.
var query = document.URL.substr(document.URL.indexOf("q=") + 2);
var start = document.URL.substr(document.URL.indexOf("start=") + 6, 2);
if (start === "1&" || document.URL.indexOf("start=") === -1)
start = 1;
//Load the script src dynamically to load script with query to call.
// DOM: Create the script element
var jsElm = document.createElement("script");
// set the type attribute
jsElm.type = "application/javascript";
// make the script element load file
jsElm.src = "https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?key=yourApikeyhere&cx=yoursearchengineidhere&start="+start+"&q=" +query +"&callback=hndlr";
// finally insert the element to the body element in order to load the script
document.body.appendChild(jsElm);
</script>
</body>
</html>