Google has released a new, experimental AJAX Search API that will allow you to embed search results into your pages. The AJAX search widget is very simple, powerful and will help you keep people on your website while they are searching.
The API is flexible. You are able to choose between blog, local, web, and video results (or have them all appear). Your users have the option of clicking through on results or copying the results for use on your site. There is browser support for Firefox, Safari, and IE6.
Sign-up is simple and takes seconds. You just need to provide the URL that you will be using to implement. Read the TOS before implementing, but you will be able to implement the API on any site that is freely open to users and not behind a pay/firewall. They’ve already set up a separate AJAX Search blog and developer forum. They’ve also set up a page of sample apps demonstrating some of the different options. The Searcher and Options sample allows you to experiment with the options of the API.
For Google this is about distribution and getting on more websites. By making a rich UX accessible for little work they will get even more people willing to put their results on their pages. Assuming they add advertising (which is mentioned as an “if” in the FAQ) then the uptake will definitely increase – especially if site-owners are able to share in the AdSense revenue (it’s not surprising to note that the AdSense question was the first one asked in Developer’s Group). This is just Version 0.1 of this API, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.