Retrieving Google Instant Data

Question

I want to develop an application that will visualize the recommendations of Google instant. It is for a course project and for now, I don't know much about web programming tools. What I wonder is that is it possible to retrieve that data from another web page. If you think it is possible and it is possible with which platform, could you please guide me to the correct direction?

Answer 1

Without more information on what you're actually trying to do, it's difficult to give a proper answer. From what I can understand, you just want a list of the auto-completed items from a Google search, to manipulate however you like?

In which case, using the highest-rated answer from here, you can use http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?client=firefox&q=YOURQUERY to give you a JSON object which you can then manipulate to get the auto-complete results. The client= part is needed, but I haven't looked at various options you can put in there.

Personally, I've never used JSON before, so can't give you any help on how to go about parsing it, but you can find more information about it on the JSON website, and w3 website.

Answer 2

Will need to act like javascript or run a javascript engine OR a browser add on and communication with that add on.

What happens as you type is a javascript function is called. So you need to call this function in your own or mimic what it does. I guess it calls a web service/ web page form programamtically (ajax) with what you have typed. The server responds with the suggestions. Not very difficult as long as Google does not deny you if it realizes your not a browser. i think they like only 100 free API calls but you can google google about that.

Http Components in java will help calling the serice, with cookeis etc. You should use the dev tools on firefox to see what happens under the hood when you type in the google search bar and see the code.