Most developers experienced a complete failure with their Google Custom Search at the beginning of October. For most of them, their search had been working as intended until the next morning, when they woke up to discover that there were errors associated with their API. The problems had nothing to do with changes to code, billing issues, or any other obvious reason why they would receive an unexpected error message that stated there was a problem with their search queries.

When your website or app utilizes search, a problem of this nature is extremely frustrating! Search is not simply a “feature,” but rather is critical to providing a good user experience. When the search fails to work properly, everything else just appears as if it is failing to work. So what happened?

What Went Wrong?

Agencies across several platforms all experienced an identical message: “Your project does not have access to the Custom Search JSON API.” Most of the Developers were confused because they had not changed their project’s setup, and therefore had never stopped working. Many projects that had operated properly for years were now completely broken overnight.

One of the developers said it could not have been more of a breakdown; there was a functional system yesterday, and there is a non-functioning system today. Uncertainty surrounding the incident truly indicates that some other technical glitch had caused this drastic reaction.

What’s Being Changed…In a Bigger Way

The transition of Google’s search experience is a long-term process as well. The implementation of Google’s new Search API will eliminate the ability for users to create new custom search API users and will require current custom search API users to migrate to the new system by 2027.

The new API will allow users to perform searches on a specified set of websites instead of performing an open web search across all web pages. Therefore, this new way of performing open web search using an API is a major alteration from previous open web search API implementations.

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Uncertainty Continues Even After Being Temporarily Resolved

There have been some instances where things seemed to resolve by themselves. The fix was only temporary and did not address the actual cause of the problem. As a trend, we have seen outages, updates that have been silently released, and no communication to provide any assurance that a repaired product will continue working for an acceptable amount of time.

Any company that depends on any Search capabilities should have many reasons to be concerned with their lack of confidence.

Why should you be concerned?

If you utilize a search function on your business website, your customers will be able to find what they need when utilizing your service. The absence of search will have a negative effect, and by not being able to access what they are looking for, decreased engagement and reduce satisfaction with your product.

Complete reliance on Google Custom Search has started to display indicators that it may have a greater risk than it would as a robust solution.

What Developers Are Doing Now

Developers are now focused on stopping future outages from happening. Some developers are researching alternative API vendors for enhanced reliability. Others are creating and testing redundant methods of connection with their original vendor. A significant number are utilizing hybrid and AI-based search as they provide Developers with more control and flexibility over the applications built.

For example, one developer recently switched from another provider to his own service in less than 30 minutes to restore his application to operational status. This exemplifies the severity of the situation, as well as the immediate necessity for a solution.

Moving Forward Smarter

Relying on a search engine that stops functioning without warning is not something that we would suggest at this time.

With ExpertRec being an alternative means of accessing and utilizing the external APIs, you will have complete control over your search experience, with the ability to create a fully customizable search solution.

When you create a custom search solution, you will have a greater amount of flexibility in the types of search features that you provide and when those features will be made available to your customers. By creating a search solution that is reliable and fast, based on your own database while providing consistent performance among all your customers’ platforms, you will be less likely to experience failure of search due to the failure of third-party vendors, and be able to maintain consistency in performance overall across your family of search products.

What You Should Do Next

You should evaluate your current usage of the Google custom search engine and find out if you have any current dependencies on these tools. Then, begin looking for alternatives before it is too late. Many companies are working on new products (equivalent to CSE) that will completely replace CSE by 2027.

If you are developing new features for your product that incorporate CSE as a part of its function, you will want to start planning for your migration away from Google in the near future. The sooner you begin this process, the smoother and less stressed you will be in determining what products will meet your requirements.

Final Thoughts

The shift from searching through the open web to using closed domain-based search has already begun. If you consider search part of your product offering, now is the time to think about how to change your search strategy. Adopting a search solution with more stability and flexibility now will give you a better opportunity to deal with any major changes within the search industry in the future.