{"id":4200,"date":"2009-06-10T16:07:35","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T23:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wapreview.com\/?p=4200"},"modified":"2009-06-10T16:07:35","modified_gmt":"2009-06-10T23:07:35","slug":"build-a-mobile-web-search-site-using-bing-or-yahoo-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/4200\/","title":{"rendered":"Build A Mobile Web Search Site Using Bing or Yahoo Data?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cocomama<\/p>\n

It looks like it’s\u00a0 now possible for developers to create a web search engine on the cheap using data from at least two of the big three (Google, Yahoo,\u00a0 Microsoft Bing) search engines.\u00a0 Instead of having to build your own army of crawler bots and commanding them to index the mobile web, a prohibitively expensive and time consuming process, you can simply pass a\u00a0 query in an API call to retrieve search results from at least two of the big three search engines.<\/p>\n

I started thinking about this when I ran across not one but two new mobile search sites,\u00a0 Cocomama <\/strong>(cocomama.mobi<\/a>) and GoGettem <\/strong>(gogettem.mob<\/a>i).\u00a0 Both returned surprising extensive and generally relevant results for the queries I tried.\u00a0 And the results were real mobile web sites, not transcoded desktop ones. Based on the number and variety of results it’s obvious these sites are not searching a hand built mobile directory but are using a crawled index of the mobile web just like Google and Yahoo do.<\/p>\n

Cocomama <\/em>was submitted to Wap Review by its publisher so I was able to ask about the source of its search results.\u00a0 They come from a UK based company called Mobile Commerce Ltd<\/a> which in turn sources them from content\u00a0 partners including Yahoo<\/strong>.\u00a0 I couldn’t find any details of\u00a0 an API,\u00a0 pricing and terms\u00a0 on the Mobile Commerce site. If you are interested, I suggest contacting them directly.<\/p>\n

The other new mobile web search site, GoGettem<\/em>, is from Coconut Island Software<\/a>, whose main business seems to be web-based directories of\u00a0 business verticals like realtors, hair dressers, nursing homes, etc.\u00a0 GoGettem.mobi\u00a0 appears to be Coconut Island’s first foray into the mobile web. It returns different results than Cocomama for the same query suggesting that the two sites use different search providers.<\/p>\n

\"Gogettem<\/p>\n

GoGettem and Cocomama got me wondering about the feasibility of building a mobile search site based on Google, Yahoo or Microsoft’s search APIs.\u00a0 As Cocomama demonstrates, its possible to get resuable Yahoo mobile search results from Mobile Commerce, LTD<\/em> but what about using one of the big three’s own APIs?<\/p>\n

I started my research with ProgrammableWeb<\/a>, a great site that tracks and catalogs every web API and mashup imaginable. There I was able to easily find information and links to tutorials and API documentation for all three big search provider’s APIs.\u00a0 Unfortunately the Google and Yahoo APIs don’t seem to have any documented way to limit results to mobile sites.\u00a0 It might still be possible with some hackery like using an undocumented parameter or post processing the resultset to eliminate non-mobile sites.\u00a0 But doing either wouldn’t be very robust and could possibly violate the provider’s terms of service.<\/p>\n

However, Microsoft’s Bing does accept a ‘MobileWeb’ source type parameter<\/a> which surprised me considering how\u00a0 Bing’s\u00a0 own mobile site basically ignores the mobile web, returning almost exclusively links to transcoded desktop sites.\u00a0 I don’t know how good the Microsoft mobile web results are but it looks like it’s worth exploring as there is no charge, no usage limits and no restrictions on ordering and blending results<\/strong><\/a> when using the Bing Search API.<\/p>\n

I’m planning on experimenting with the Bing API to see if I can build a useful mobile web search on it.\u00a0 I wonder if\u00a0 any of my readers doing something similar Bing or another API? Let us know in a comment if you are.<\/p>\n

I’ve added Cocomama amd GoGettem to the Wap Review Directory’s – Search\/Web Search<\/a> section.\u00a0 In addition to mobile web search, both sites offer other mobile search and directory services.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Cocomama<\/strong> has mobile web search and a categorized directory of downloadable content (ringtones, themes, games) and information (news, sports, finance).<\/p>\n

Ratings: Content \"*\"\"*\"\"*\"\"*\"\"_\" Usability \"X\"\"X\"\"X\"\"X\"\"_\"<\/p>\n

Ready.mobi Score: 5 “Good”<\/a><\/p>\n

Mobile Link:\u00a0cocomama.mobi<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Gogettem <\/strong>offers mobile web search and\u00a0 U.S.only search pages for local businesses, people (phone number lookup), apartments, news, hotel rooms, restaurants, fitness centers and services for pets plus a calorie counter.<\/p>\n

Ratings: Content \"*\"\"*\"\"*\"\"*\"\"_\" Usability \"X\"\"X\"\"X\"\"X\"\"_\"<\/p>\n

Ready.mobi Score: 5 “Good”<\/a><\/p>\n

Mobile Link: www.gogettem.mobi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It looks like it’s\u00a0 now possible for developers to create a web search engine on the cheap using data from at least two of the big three (Google, Yahoo,\u00a0 Microsoft Bing) search engines.\u00a0 Instead of having to build your own army of crawler bots and commanding them to index the mobile web, a prohibitively expensive and time consuming process, you can simply pass a\u00a0 query in an API call to retrieve search results from at least two of the big … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[242,1403,1415,148,1414],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4200"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4220,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions\/4220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}