We’re excited to share news of a new product our partners over at Google Cloud just announced, Vertex AI Search! If you use the Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API we believe this product is likely a good fit for you.
Vertex AI Search allows you to set up and deploy a Google-grade site search engine in minutes at a competitive price. In addition to the basic search experience, Vertex AI Search provides an advanced option, which includes:
Because we believe Vertex AI Search best serves the needs of site restricted search use cases, we are no longer receiving new customers for the Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API. This has no effect on existing customers.
If you are interested in moving from the Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API to Vertex AI Search, you can find transition guidance here.
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Last July, we introduced the new Programmable Search Engine control panel. While we continued to provide the option to use the legacy control panel, we’re glad to see that the vast majority of customers have found value in the new control panel and made the switch permanently. During this time, we’ve worked diligently to respond to feedback and ensure the new control panel has all the features customers need and expect from Programmable Search Engine.
Today, we’re confident that the new control panel is more user-friendly and intuitive, making it easier than ever to create and manage your search engines. Therefore, the legacy control panel will be retired on June 21, 2023 and all remaining traffic will be redirected to the new control panel.
We’re confident you’ll like the new control panel as much as we do. As always, your feedback is welcome and encouraged as we continue to improve Programmable Search Engine.
As the search space continues to evolve, we want to make sure that Programmable Search Engine continues to evolve to meet the needs of your users. We’ve decided to remove the Popular Queries JavaScript API (https://cse.google.com/api/<Search Engine ID>/popularqueryjs). Starting on November 11, 2022, this feature will no longer be available.
If you’ve been showing Popular Queries on your website, we’re glad to let you know that the Stats tab of the Statistics and Logs page in the Control Panel still shows popular queries for your Programmable Search Engine. We know this may be disruptive, so if you have questions or need assistance, please check out the Help Center or reach out to us on the Community Forums.
While the current control panel has served our customers well over the years, the time has come for a refresh. Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the new Programmable Search Engine control panel!
We are pleased to announce that Programmable Search Engine now includes support for JSON-LD structured data in addition to the many formats already supported. This JSON-LD support includes:
Structured data restricts
Structured data sorting and biasing
Structured data in search results
We currently support JSON-LD annotations that include any of 42 Schema.org types descended from Event, ClaimReview, and EducationalOrganization. If you have other types that would be useful for your specific use case, please let us know in the Support Forum.
Google recommends using JSON-LD for structured data whenever possible.
Use a simple, search the web engine, like this, and search for:
more:pagemap:broadcastevent-islivebroadcast:true
A more specific restrict like:
more:pagemap:event-name:new_years_day
searches for results with structured data events with a name starting with new years day, and returns fewer results. The results become more focused when the restrict is combined with other query terms, like “music”. We can also use more than one restrict to generate a very precise query, like:
more:pagemap:event-name:new_years_day more:pagemap:event-description:louisiana
Structured data queries like these work on any Programmable Search Engine. The structured data restricts can combine with the Search Engine’s site restricts to give a tightly-focused search.
Here’s a search engine that uses restricts based on JSON-LD structured data to search YouTube. It includes two refinement selections:
Startdate in 2020
Live Event
The values of the corresponding refinements are:
more:pagemap:broadcastevent-startdate:2020
We’re pleased to announce that search engines will have access to a much larger pool of autocompletions. These additional autocompletions will not be customized to each search engine, and will be shown below any available engine-specific autocompletions.
Engine owners who prefer to limit their autocompletions to only those customized to their particular search engine can configure this by switching off the “Include autocompletions from the entire web” settings in Control Panel > Search features > Autocomplete.
Engines that have custom autocompletion excludes or exclude patterns will have this option off by default.
Beginning April 30th, 2021, we will discontinue revenue sharing on the following search engine layouts:
The public URL - a link provided for a Google hosted public page for your engine that hosts both the search box and the search results
The Google hosted layout, in which only the search results are displayed on a Google-hosted webpage
Search engines that fall into the two above categories will continue to show ads, but no revenue will be shared.
What does this mean for me?
To continue sharing revenue, you’ll need to use the Search Element deployed on your own site, which will continue to allow for monetization. To deploy the search element tag, please review the developer page.
To change your search engine layout:
What should I do next?
Please visit the help center for help with any other questions / concerns.
