Confusion on google api query limit for chrome extension - google-chrome-extension

I'm super new to making chrome extensions, but I really wanted to make one that let me highlight text and just do a simple same-page google image search of that text by clicking the extension button and opening a popup of the returned images from the query. So I made it and tested it using the deprecated google image search api. I want to put it live but I'm genuinely confused about the query limits. I have no intention to make money off of it in any way, considering the primary content of the extension is just a google image search. I just always hated having to open a new tab to search for images of a word I see on a website when surfing the web.
Also is it even possible to upload it to the store when it's using the deprecated google image search api that still works for some reason even without a key. Or would I need to update it to using the custom search api, which has only free 100 queries per day. And can someone explain that? If it's an extension, and a end user clicks on the extension button and it queries google custom search api, I'd only have 99 queries left for that day? So only about 2-5 people could actively use it during the day before the limit is reached? I spent hours reading stuff but I still don't quite understand.

Don't use the Image Search API. It was deprecated in May, 2011 with bests effort to keep it running for three years. It's now well past that best effort timeframe so I can disappear without notice leaving your extension broken.
The Custom Search JSON/Atom API free tier is 100 searches per day for your entire application. That that could be 100 people making one query each or 1 person making 100 queries.

Related

Google Analytics vs. Chrome Web Store Statistics Very Different

I recently released a chrome extension new tab, and I wanted to check the download/usage statistics.
I added both google analytics and checked the chrome web store stats. The values are extremely different. Here they are (for the same app):
Here is my extension on the web store:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/perspective-new-tab/hehnfhfmcifhbgkefjbfbaefhddlpnjj
My question: why are these values so different? They are off by a factor of 10. Which one (if any) is correct, and is there some way I can know for sure?
Thanks!
As stated in this post, sometimes it takes many days for stats to show, and some days are never updated.
If you link your extension with google analytics, you can then see installs from analytics but its not the same, as the chrome stats also substract uninstalls (not tracked in analytics).
You may also check this link for additional reference.

Retrieve Google results without using the Custom Search API

Recently I've been working on an idea that requires me to query Google Images and retrieve links for images matching that search term. My most promising candidate for a usable Google Images API was the Google Web Search API, but it looks like it's going to be going out of service as of tomorrow:
https://developers.google.com/web-search/docs/
The API that replaced it is the Google Custom Search API, but it's a little discouraging to use:
Google API Custom Search with Python - Programmatic Search Results
100 search results a day is a very strict limit; that's just four searches per hour. I also don't want to have to go through the hassle of creating some custom search bar that I'm never going to use except through Python
I decided to turn to parsing HTML directly from the results page. This presents a problem, though, because nowhere inside the page's HTML is there any direct link to the image, only referrer URLs. This is true of the javascript-enabled and javascript-disabled versions of Google Images (so even if Python spoofs javascript as enabled, nothing). I'm not sure where to go from here. Could anyone refer me to some obscure, updated library that I've somehow overlooked, or give me some pointers?
You could use Selenium Webdriver to actually execute the JavaScript and click on the images in the thumbnail view. Once an image has been opened, the link is in the DOM and you can scrape it from there. All Webdriver does is open an actual browser and simulate a user. You can even run it as a headless browser if you use xvfbwrapper. The downside is that even then, you will need all the dependencies of the browser you are using installed on your server.
However, scraping Google is against their terms of service and they will make an effort of blocking you as quickly as possible. So, unless you pass through the captchas (which are linked to sessions), you will possibly not be able to make a whole lot of searches before being blocked this way, either.

How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

I have problem that me (I'm in Europe) and my college (he is Europe) are getting different results for a search a Google query even though we use the following:
we added &pws=0 to query
we use browser in incognito mode.
Is there any way to turn off personalization completely?
It may be personalizing based on your location. You can get around this by going through a proxy (dreaded and unacceptable answer, I know). Google doesn't provide an easy option to disable it.
Try these Yoast plugins:
http://yoast.com/tools/seo/disable-personalized-search-plugin/
Or this Chrome extension:
http://www.redflymarketing.com/internet-marketing-tools/google-global/
Google allows you to set your search area as large as a country. By default, I set mine for the United States to remove any local bias that creeps into my results.
try go to the preference page and see if you and your colleague have different settings.
http://www.google.com/preferences
You may try using a different browser to get an "unpersonalized" search. There are some browsers that already claim to do this, but I haven't tested them myself...
There may be the problem of the search not being as complete as Google can 'sometimes' be. Google is most famous for it's search engine because of how it worked differently from other engines at the time it came out. This may be more or less the same now, or other companies may have caught up - I'm not sure.
One such engine goes by the ridiculous name "DuckDuckGo." It is the first result to show up "for me" when searching "unfiltered web search engines".
Other than that, you may try contacting Google representatives to get answers more directly.

Google Earth Questions: Making Outside Pages Appear in Google Earth and A Button That Follows

Good morning, eveyrone
I'm working on an application using Google Earth and I had two questions.
The first question involves the pop up window. I want to get an external website to appear in this bubble. I can either hardcode the website into the description of the placemark or use an iFrame. Are there any other options I can use to get a website into Google Earth?
Second question: I want to ensure that the user, at all times while using my kml, has access to certain buttons. Is there a way without querying web application every few seconds to ensure that the button remains available to the user?
Thank you for your time.
The answer to you first question is no - other than loading the html directly or using an IFRAME there is no way to display markup in the content balloons.
I am not sure what you mean in you second question, are you developing a web-based application using the Google Earth Plugin - or a kml layer for use in the google earth application. Either way you should not have to query anything to make sure a button is visible.

Using Google Docs from web app

We have a requirement for people to be able to look at documents people have uploaded to us (mainly word, possibly some rtf) via our web app. We want the user to be able to open the docs inside the browser, but keep the original formatting and not have the need for another application (like word, acrobat etc).
We thought about using google docs to do this, there appears to be some batch uploading options to get stuff in there but does anyone know if we can use the API's to keep the user on our site without them having to login to google docs themselves, and keep them still on our website with re-directing to google docs to view them.
Cheers
There's an option to make documents public (Somewhere in Share->Advanced Options).
Using api you can get list of documents in your google docs account, you can even search em. In your app you could make a link to the document in google docs which opens in a new window. That way your user will never navigate away from your page. An alternative would be to use an IFrame, but it's considered bad practice.
A completely different approach could be to automatically generate and host a pdf each time someone uploads a file. There are scripts/programs which can do that, just call them after you receive a file.

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