Google Custom Search API - Search Results - search

Question

I have somewhat lost touch with custom search engines ever since Google switched from its more legacy search engine api in favor of the google custom search api. I'm hoping someone might be able to tell me whether a (pretty simple) goal can be accomplished with the new framework, and potentially any starting help would be great.
Specifically, I am looking to write a program which will read in text from a text file, then use five words from said document in a google search - the point being to figure out how many results accrue from said search.
An example input/output would be:
Input: "This is my search term" -- quotations included in the search!
Output: there were 7 total results
Thanks so much, all, for your time/help

Answer 1

First you need to create a Google Custom Search project inside you google account.
From this project you must obtain a Custom Search Engine ID , known as cx parameter. You must also obtain a API key parameter. Both of these are available from your Google Custom Search API project inside your google account.
Then, if you prefer Java , here's a working example:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
public class GoogleCustonSearchAPI {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
String key="your_key";
String qry="your_query";
String cx = "your_cx";
//Fetch urls
URL url = new URL(
"https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?key="+key+"&cx="+cx+"&q="+ qry +"&alt=json&queriefields=queries(request(totalResults))");
HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
conn.setRequestMethod("GET");
conn.setRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
(conn.getInputStream())));
//Remove comments if you need to output in JSON format
/*String output;
System.out.println("Output from Server .... \n");
while ((output = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(output);
}*/
//Print the urls and domains from Google Custom Search String searchResult;
while ((searchResult = output.readLine()) != null) {
int startPos=searchResult.indexOf("\"link\": \"")+("\"link\": \"").length();
int endPos=searchResult.indexOf("\",");
if(searchResult.contains("\"link\": \"") && (endPos>startPos)){
String link=searchResult.substring(startPos,endPos);
if(link.contains(",")){
String tempLink = "\"";
tempLink+=link;
tempLink+="\"";
System.out.println(tempLink);
}
else{
System.out.println(link);
}
System.out.println(getDomainName(link));
}
}
conn.disconnect();
}
public static String getDomainName(String url) throws URISyntaxException {
URI uri = new URI(url);
String domain = uri.getHost();
return domain.startsWith("www.") ? domain.substring(4) : domain;
}
The "&queriefields=queries(request(totalResults))" is what makes the difference and gives sou what you need. But keep in mind that you can perform only 100 queries per day for free and that the results of Custom Search API are sometimes quite different from the those returned from Google.com search

Answer 2

If anybody would still need some example of CSE (Google Custom Search Engine) API, this is working method
public static List<Result> search(String keyword){
Customsearch customsearch= null;
try {
customsearch = new Customsearch(new NetHttpTransport(),new JacksonFactory(), new HttpRequestInitializer() {
public void initialize(HttpRequest httpRequest) {
try {
// set connect and read timeouts
httpRequest.setConnectTimeout(HTTP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT);
httpRequest.setReadTimeout(HTTP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
});
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
List<Result> resultList=null;
try {
Customsearch.Cse.List list=customsearch.cse().list(keyword);
list.setKey(GOOGLE_API_KEY);
list.setCx(SEARCH_ENGINE_ID);
Search results=list.execute();
resultList=results.getItems();
}
catch ( Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return resultList;
}
This method returns List of Result Objects, so you can iterate through it
List<Result> results = new ArrayList<>();
try {
results = search(QUERY);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
for(Result result : results){
System.out.println(result.getDisplayLink());
System.out.println(result.getTitle());
// all attributes
System.out.println(result.toString());
}
I use gradle dependencies
dependencies {
compile 'com.google.apis:google-api-services-customsearch:v1-rev57-1.23.0'
}
Don't forget to define your own GOOGLE_API_KEY, SEARCH_ENGINE_ID (cx), QUERY and HTTP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT (ie private static final int HTTP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT = 3 * 600000;)