Google Custom Search API is being shut down, and many businesses now look for cheap and independent alternatives to search the web.

The present shift in the search ecosystem is not a technological change but a strategic change in which many organizations perceive the Google Custom JSON API as more than just a technology to control the mass screening of websites.

As a result, for those many companies that have integrated the Google Custom Search API in a suite of products for conducting large-scale screening of websites for background checks, compliance, and searches for negative press and any other purpose that could previously have been done using this API, replacing this API alone would not prove a sufficient solution to their problem.

More than just finding an API to replace the Google Custom Search API, there is a need for a cheap and scalable solution that can allow companies to keep using their business model, but still be able to tap into the open web.

Let us continue with the discussion of the current state of affairs and how users of such search engines as Expertrec have solved the problem of finding a suitable replacement.

So what’s really up with this API shutdown?

Looking solely at the outward appearances of the API shutdown, it is just another example of Google ‘turning off’ one of their products.

However, there may be more to it under the surface, such as diminished access to affordable and open searches within an unfiltered web or perpetuation of the diminishment of access to cheap, open source search via the unfiltered Web.

In addition, the industry estimates that the cost of enterprise-grade solutions for AI Search can be 2x – 5x the cost of legacy SERP APIs, especially as the use cases scale above 50K searches per month.

Thus, prices in any given pricing model that is based on unlimited or high-frequency searches will be degraded as each of those excess search requests incurs additional costs.

Just a week back, a product manager stated that, “Search has become less of a utility and more of a premium service,” which marks a dramatic change from the days when all startups were run off of the free and/or open source search engines.

Need for an “Open Web”

The primary focus of our platform features is to allow you to have full access to the Internet rather than a pre-selected set of URLs.

When one is attempting to sort through negative reputation indicators, it is important to have a breadth of results available to be able to spot news and/or issues that might come out.

If the search results are limited to only a certain number of sources, there is a danger that critical mentions will be missed, which are mainly present in smaller local publications, for example, newspapers and blogs.

Research indicates that over 60% of the negative reputation risk signals emanate from long tail or smaller sources than the major news organizations.

Open indexing of content becomes a needed element in the use-case.

Cost Problem With Scale

For enterprises that pursue a project with a screening tool, and if a user plans to do 40,000-60,000 screening requests in a month, then the difference in pricing becomes critical to the particular budget.

On the high end, Google had earlier set expected large-scale profile screening to cost roughly $5.00 per one-thousand requests, but now some competitors have priced well over one-hundred percent higher, i.e., between $10.00-$15.00 per one-thousand requests, depending on the number of attributes or AI levels associated with their products.

This means that even for a small company, the cost of sustaining the existing infrastructure can double in a day.

Affordable Open Web Search Alternative

Build your own scalable search layer with ExpertRec

Replace expensive APIs with a flexible search infrastructure. Crawl, index, and search the open web your way—while keeping costs predictable even at 60K+ queries per month.

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No vendor lock-in • Cost control • Scalable indexing

What Role Does Expertrec Play in the Future of Search APIs?

The development of platforms such as Expertrec is playing an increasingly important role. Either traditional API’s have completely stopped being used or have become highly costly to many developers. So Expertrec is filling this void by supplying developers with the functionality to design their own search infrastructures custom-tailored to their respective business needs, as well as repurposing an already created solution for multiple use cases within web discovery. Besides site search, Expertrec also provides more sophisticated functionalities to crawl and index content with greater freedom.

By creating this level of control, there are now ample freedoms to not only design the amount of content that you want to be indexed but also the frequency with which the indexed content takes place. There is no longer one single price tier or a restrictive ecosystem to abide by.

One view observes that “the future of search APIs will no longer be about having access to a search API, but having ownership of one’s own search layer.” For startups that are trying to quickly scale in an economic way, this change means a lot.

Other Emerging Alternatives in the Market

Many of the additional search alternatives include small and independent search engines that have dominated that area and are either entirely private-indexing or generated through SERP scraping or metasearching. Smaller search providers currently run on low levels of reliability or inconsistency in ensuring that search results are always returned. Most of these have neither the size nor the capacity to give the same uptime or serve customers with a similar quality of results as Google or Microsoft does.

As such, when evaluating a search solution, you need to evaluate a solution based on more than just price; you also need to consider coverage, dependability, and long-term viability of that solution.

Quick Reality Check Quiz

A Major Change – Searching Ownership

There is quite a shift in our industry occurring; Search’s role as a plug-and-play and the essential piece in every company’s infrastructure (own this piece) is changing.

This brings with it a whole new opportunity for companies such as yours to build hybrid searches which involve controlled indexing with some queries coming from outside sites, enabling them to save significantly, while still having most, or all of their indexing done

Final Thoughts

To conclude, the discontinuation of the Google Custom Search JSON API is more than just another inconvenience for Google; it is a larger trend – that affordable/open search access to the web is becoming less and less available. Companies need to know how to carry out searches on the web in light of this new reality. Finally, successful search solutions are seen in how much control and flexibility they offer.

There are a lot of approaches that are available through the Expertrec service that allow you to manage the costs, services, and grow your business without having to rely on one big enterprise supply, customising your search experience.

Ultimately, your product will have to rely not only on search but also on an effective and sustainable way to do so.