Implemented Google Search

This week I finally had the time to change the Search page of my web site. Up until this week, searches were performed with a custom search solution, that understood a simple form of boolean logic. However, that solution certainly had its limitations.

Improving Search

The biggest problem with my custom solution was that it only searched database content. However, I also have a number of static pages (like the entire About section) that couldn't be searched with it.

I learned about the Google Search API a long time ago and I knew it would be useful because my site is indexed by Google pretty well. However, I just never got to implementing it on my site. Until this week.

Turns out it's dead easy. You register with Google to get a license key (that allows you to query their system a 1,000 times a day), generate a C# class for a Web Service from a WSDL document, and then fire queries at this web service with the same syntax as you can use in www.Google.com itself. Binding the results to an ASP.NET control like a Repeater or DataList is easy as well.

If you want to use Google Search on your own web site, then check out this article from 4guysfromrolla.com. It describes the entire procedure so you can use the Google API yourself in no time.

Have fun searching!!


Where to Next?

Wonder where to go next? You can post a comment on this article.

Doc ID 408
Full URL https://imar.spaanjaars.com/408/implemented-google-search
Short cut https://imar.spaanjaars.com/408/
Written by Imar Spaanjaars
Date Posted 12/06/2006 08:55
Listened to when writing Decades by Joy Division (Track 15 from the album: Heart And Soul (CD 2))

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