Google Kills Custom Search API on Jan 1, 2027

alexey-salmin

https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview Note: The Custom Search JSON API is closed to new customers. Vertex AI Search is a favorable alternative for searching up to 50 domains. Alternatively, if your use case necessitates full web search, contact us to express your interest in and get more information about our full web search solution. Existing Custom Search JSON API customers have until January 1, 2027 to transition to an alternative solution.

faangguyindia

I was using it for an ai agent i built for my use as home assistant. It seems like many competing companies might be doing same.

ethancanterbury

Microsoft already did this with the Bing Search API back in August 2025, killed both the free and paid tiers with nothing that drops in to replace it.

Krutonium

All I'm sayin' is that Searx exists and can provide JSON.

charcircuit

Why would they do this as AI companies and agents have driven demand for other companies to want to integrate search into their products?

gallerdude

Why would you use AI to write this post? If you can’t bother to write it, why should I bother to read it?

ChrisArchitect

Previously in January: Updates to our web search products and Programmable Search Engine capabilities https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730436

spottedmarley

In the search game the board has changed

topherPedersen

That's surprising to me that they would kill something like this off, because LLMs are going to need search APIs. Why wouldn't Google want to be the search engine all of the AIs use? While we (people) may not need search engines as much as we once did, LLMs probably do need search capabilities. I could be wrong, maybe reply if I am, but don't LLMs typically need to search for information? For example, when I ask ChatGPT some obscure question about my Behringer RD-8 drum machine, an LLM isn't going to know the answer based on its original training will it? (even if the manual was out in the public internet when the model was trained)? Under the hood its searching for information and then processing it extremelly quickly right? These LLMs don't just "know" the answer do they?

remywang

Please link to https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview instead of whatever this is.

oompty

Anyone know if that will affect stuff like Duckduckgo search for its !g fallback or do they have custom deals?

hartator

The article forgot to mention that Goggle is suing us, SerpApi the main alternative. Our take: https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-motion-to-dismiss-...