A robot would be an application which retrieves search results or other data in an automated manner. That would apply to applications which make requests at a fixed or random interval. Such applications are prohibited by the Web Search TOS. Scraping - which I suspect a court of law would define in a similar manner - is prohibited in the Custom Search APIs TOS.
Also, as I said before, neither API will return results which are completely consistent with the results you will find on google.com. This is not a mere syntax change. The results you receive from either of the Google APIs will be different than the results a regular end user would receive running a search on Google. So building an application based on the APIs will be of only marginal value for SEO purposes, which is what it sounds like you're trying to do. And since the general TOS prohibit scraping of results, you're not allowed to pull a regular google.com search and parse out the results there, either. In short, I'm not sure that you can do what you're proposing in a legal manner. And therefore, I would strongly discourage you from doing so. Certainly, I would discourage persons on this group from facilitating your efforts. jg On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 10:21 PM, Geoffrey Hoffman < [email protected]> wrote: > You can also try things like randomizing your sleep time in-between > requests and changing the user-agent string you send—basically make your > robot seem more like an office full of regular users. Be nice to their > servers and you may be able to get search results undetected. > > For the record, the Google Web Search > API<https://developers.google.com/web-search/terms>, > which is deprecated (but still worked last time I checked it), states, in > part, on the TOS that *you will not*: > > - *use any robot*, spider, site search/*retrieval application*, or > other device *to retrieve or index any portion of Google Search Results > * or to collect information about users for any unauthorized purpose; > > I have to believe that since they've deprecated the web search API, they > want you to scrape their results now even less than they used to. > > > > On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 7:33 PM, PHPBABY3 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> On Nov 18, 9:29 pm, Geoffrey Hoffman <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > Throttle your requests throug multiple IPs. >> > >> >> Is that all it is - frequency of request? I lately started getting it >> when I manually copy a complete set of results (all pages.) What >> would the threshold frequency be? >> >> Charlie >> >> > >> > On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 7:11 PM, PHPBABY3 <[email protected]> wrote: >> > > I have an application in which I need to know the results of a >> > > variable Google (or other search engine) results i.e. the first page >> > > with the number of results and the first 10, and a link to the next >> > > page if there are more. >> > >> > > When I get it through a PHP function at some point Google only sends >> > > a >> > > message that it thinks I'm a robot (which I am.) >> > >> > > Charlie >> > >> > > -- >> > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> > > Groups "Google AJAX APIs" group. >> > > To post to this group, send email to >> > > [email protected] >> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> > > [email protected] >> > > To view this message on the web, visit >> > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en_US >> > > For more options, visit this group at >> > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en?hl=en >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Google AJAX APIs" group. >> To post to this group, send email to >> [email protected] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] >> To view this message on the web, visit >> http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en_US >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en?hl=en >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Google AJAX APIs" group. > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > To view this message on the web, visit > http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en_US > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en?hl=en > -- Jeremy R. Geerdes Generally Cool Guy Des Moines, IA If you're in the Des Moines, IA, area, check out Debra Heights Wesleyan Church! http://www.debraheightswesleyan.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google AJAX APIs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] To view this message on the web, visit http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en_US For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en?hl=en
