Google launches Ajax search tools

By Tom Sanders on Oct 6, 2006 10:11 AM
Filed under Software

Search firm offers website operators 'a little bit of Google'.

The tool allows site operators to display Google Search and search results on their websites where previously search results were displayed on a new page.

"We want to give you a way to put a little bit of Google on your website," said Tom Stocky, Google's product manager for the technology, speaking at the official unveiling of the API at the AjaxWorld Expo in Santa Clara, California.

The Asynchronous Javascript and XML API can offer results from Google Search, News, Maps, Video and Blog search features.

The API offers a maximum of eight results to prevent users from launching their own search engine. Search results will include sponsored listings, but advertisers will not be charged for click-throughs during the current test phase.

Web developers will be allowed to use the search results to build composite applications.

In a demonstration at the trade show, Stocky showed how the technology could be deployed to use an independent website to build a wish-list from items in Amazon's Web store.

In another demonstration he created a list of addresses from Google's local search and displayed those locations on a map, again without leaving the original website.

A bare version of the Ajax API has been available since June as version 0.1. The current version is labelled as 'beta'.