4 ms·

Google is discontinuing its free web search index for developers

61 points by hmokiguess 6mo ago

tech234a 6mo ago
The article suggests Common Crawl as a replacement which probably doesn’t make sense on its own due to low update frequency (monthly) and somewhat limited crawl scope. (Looks like the sentence following the suggestion addresses this somewhat.)
elektor 6mo ago
Is this good for Kagi?
- hmokiguess 6mo ago
  Does Kagi have a free developer api?
  - SyneRyder 6mo ago
    Not free, 2.5c per search: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html Their API doesn't provide the mixed Kagi metasearch results though. Only results from their smallweb Teclis index, Curlie, and I think Marginalia results are included. Probably also other sources I'm not aware of. Marginalia has a free-ish API for non-commercial purposes if you go direct: https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/ https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/
iberator 6mo ago
Good. Duck google and use other indexing. ps. Modern AI is in reality talking web search engine imo.
- janalsncm 6mo ago
  An LLM does not continuously index the Internet and is therefore stale the second it starts training. You need to use something like RAG. And the R in RAG needs an index.
- hmokiguess 6mo ago
  What other index is there that is both free, reliable, and accurate at web scale?
  - iberator 6mo ago
    yuck duck go
mamman777 6mo ago
I just see another small competitor becoming big by taking over
janalsncm 6mo ago
This was announced in January. https://programmablesearchengine.googleblog.com/2026/01/updates-to-our-web-search-products.html https://programmablesearchengine.googleblog.com/2026/01/upda...
SyneRyder 6mo ago
Some alternative web search APIs: Marginalia: free-ish for non-commercial use https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/ https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/ Brave: free for first 1000/mth, 0.5c per search https://brave.com/search/api/ https://brave.com/search/api/ Mojeek: £0.001 - £0.003 (0.1p - 0.3p) per search https://www.mojeek.com/services/search/web-search-api/ https://www.mojeek.com/services/search/web-search-api/ Kagi: 2.5c per search https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html

61 points by hmokiguess 6mo ago

The article suggests Common Crawl as a replacement which probably doesn’t make sense on its own due to low update frequency (monthly) and somewhat limited crawl scope. (Looks like the sentence following the suggestion addresses this somewhat.)

elektor 6mo ago

Is this good for Kagi?

hmokiguess 6mo ago
Does Kagi have a free developer api?
- SyneRyder 6mo ago
  Not free, 2.5c per search: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html Their API doesn't provide the mixed Kagi metasearch results though. Only results from their smallweb Teclis index, Curlie, and I think Marginalia results are included. Probably also other sources I'm not aware of. Marginalia has a free-ish API for non-commercial purposes if you go direct: https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/ https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/

iberator 6mo ago

Good. Duck google and use other indexing. ps. Modern AI is in reality talking web search engine imo.

janalsncm 6mo ago
An LLM does not continuously index the Internet and is therefore stale the second it starts training. You need to use something like RAG. And the R in RAG needs an index.
hmokiguess 6mo ago
What other index is there that is both free, reliable, and accurate at web scale?
- iberator 6mo ago
  yuck duck go

mamman777 6mo ago

I just see another small competitor becoming big by taking over

janalsncm 6mo ago

This was announced in January. https://programmablesearchengine.googleblog.com/2026/01/updates-to-our-web-search-products.html https://programmablesearchengine.googleblog.com/2026/01/upda...

SyneRyder 6mo ago

Some alternative web search APIs: Marginalia: free-ish for non-commercial use https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/ https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/api/ Brave: free for first 1000/mth, 0.5c per search https://brave.com/search/api/ https://brave.com/search/api/ Mojeek: £0.001 - £0.003 (0.1p - 0.3p) per search https://www.mojeek.com/services/search/web-search-api/ https://www.mojeek.com/services/search/web-search-api/ Kagi: 2.5c per search https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html