Google’s Custom Search API now supports image-only results

Google’s Custom Search API now supports image-only search results, one year after the company enabled image-only results into the standard Google Custom Search Engines product. For site owners interested in adding that level of flexibility, you can read more about accessing Image Results from the API or try it out in the Custom Search API Explorer.

If you’re not familiar with the JSON/Atom Custom Search API, it essentially allows developers to create website and programs that retrieve and display search results from Google Custom Search programmatically. This change is particularly relevant to developers already using the product, but it should also add some extra incentive for anyone curious about the API.

As far as costs go, you can expect image queries to be treated the same as web queries. If you are still using the deprecated Google Image Search API, you will need to switch to the current version to access these new features.

Google’s Nam Nguyen has provided an example of an image search to find small jpeg images of flowers here, but you’ll need a valid key and CSE ID to actually test it out yourself. Learn more about the changes via the original blog post.