Lately, I’ve been getting a few questions about the Google API’s. Although mostly intended for Web developers, search engine implementations or Internet applications that query the Internet using the Google database, Google’s API could be of some help for you, depending on your general level of knowledge or expertise in Web technology and your programming skills. This article is meant only as an introduction to Google’s API’s. If the need warrants it, I would be pleased to write a more detailed and in-depth article on them at a later date. First, what is a Google API? The Google API stands for ‘Application Programmable Interface’. As it’s name implies, it is an interface that queries the Google database to help programmers in the development of their applications. At this point, it is important to remember that all of Google’s APIs are only available in beta version, which means they are mostly still in their initial trial release and that there could still be a few adjustments required to some of them, although I must honestly say that I am quite pleased with what I saw so far. By definition, Google API’s consist basically of specialized Web services and programs and specialized scripts that enable Internet application developers to better find and process information on the Web. In essence, Google APIs can be used as an added resource in their applications. How can Google API’s be used effectively? In the real world, application programmers, developers and integrators write software programs that can connect remotely to the Google API’s. All data communications are executed via the ‘Simple Object Access Protocol’ (SOAP), which is a Web services standards as defined by the industry. The SOAP protocol is an XML-based technology meant to easily exchange information entered into a Web application.
thanks for the introduction to Google API, recently i came across many applications which requires Google API Key to work properly, most of them were keywords research tools & competitors research tool. But along with that I also get the message that Google has stopped giving away the API keys. All I want to ask is that, is there anyway I could get the Google API key and if yes, how much would that cost me ? Thanks!