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Ask HN: Is it possible to use Google search results like startpage.com does?

15 points by omidfi ↗ HN
I’d like to make a website like startpage.com. In their FAQ they say they have some agreement with Google.

Does anyone know how I can get a similar agreement?

Gooogle Custom Search has some limits, like 10K calls per day if the whole internet is searched. So that’s not the answer.

My goal? Build something like Ecosia.org but using Google.

5 comments

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throwaway888abc
Ecosia is powered by MS. See footer.

See the available MS API: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service... https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cognitive-...

https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206153381-Where...

Also see DuckDuckGo API:

http://api.duckduckgo.com/?q=x&format=json

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37012469/duckduckgo-api-...

Have good fun!

omidfi
Yes, it’s possible to use Bing. But I don’t like the results. That’s why I’m trying to find out how startpage uses Google.
skinnymuch
They reportedly got a deal with Google over a decade ago. I don’t think any one (in the 99.9% or more) has a chance of getting a big search deal with Google amy more.
speedgoose
I looked into that, and I'm afraid you can't. My guess is that startpage has a special deal for some reasons, perhaps a long term contract. Perhaps if you have a lot of money and good connections with Google you can talk to them, but it's weird that no one else is using Google Search's results.

You can find some shady google search proxies that will query google for you so you don't get blocked, but I wouldn't recommend that. I didn't test them, maybe they are just a scam.

omidfi
I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of years now. I kind of hoped someone on HQ can shed some light on it :(