Google replacing SOAP Search API with AJAX Search API. Is your customized on-site search engine prepared?

• I just received notice that Google is retiring their SOAP search API which I use to power the customized search on my website. Does that mean my custom search engine won't work soon? ...and if so, how do I correct this?

Answer: Yes that is correct—the SOAP API will no longer function after August 31, 2009. This API was actually considered obsolescent and in the process of being phased out by Google back in 2006.

As Google states in their March 3, 2009 official notification blog post:

"...the SOAP Search API will be retired on August 31st, 2009. It was deprecated in 2006, when we stopped accepting new developers for the API. Since then, it's been steadily declining in usage and we believe the majority of use cases are sufficiently handled by the more comprehensive AJAX Search API.

"In many ways, this AJAX API is a superset of the SOAP API, providing access to local, news, image, and video search results, among others, in addition to web search. Therefore, we encourage SOAP developers to explore our documentation and consider migrating their applications."

The good news is,...