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Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

enterprise.google.com

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Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#41

What? Why? You can still do the same search by typing site:URL in Google so it's literally zero investment by them to keep it workinf. And these people were paying for it. I can't help think this has something to do with their AMP articles. They don't want you to leave google, ever

Paying gets you white-label branding and no ads.

You can hide their ads with css. Probably against their tos, but I haven't been busted for doing it in 2yrs.

Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#43
post #11
post #5

It's not ad-supported, so Google has to actually sell the service and collect money from large numbers of small users. Google is not good at that.

They manage that with Google Music, recurring Play store payments etc.

Given the big mess they had when Google Drive migrated to Google Play subscriptions I wouldn't exactly say that they're good at it. http://imgur.com/a/gzkZ5

Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#45
post #6

Of course, another product shut down by Google.

Custom search has large maintenance costs--a lot of effort which really isn't interesting for any developer to work on. And apparently companies aren't willing to pay enough to overcome that. I don't think Google has any obligation not to shut down products.

Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#46

Where is the shut-down message? I just get the pricing page for GSS in Dutch. EDIT: I was also able to create a new site search engine.

> Where is the shut-down message? Try English version of that page: https://enterprise.google.com/search/products/gss.html?hl=en > EDIT: I was also able to create a new site search engine. The shut-down message says " On April 1, 2017, Google will discontinue sales of the Google Site Search ".

Amusing how they don't feel the need to inform non-english people.

Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#47
post #5

It's not ad-supported, so Google has to actually sell the service and collect money from large numbers of small users. Google is not good at that.

Google are only interested in selling things by the billion or billion, therefore things like the robots have to go. This is one of those products that does not sell to millions and therefore it has to be got rid of. Not sure when the 'must sell billions' idea came along, it was before the Pixel phone but is a relatively new idea for Google.

It's sort of the startup philosophy in reverse. "Only do things that have economies of scale." As if Google is just one person controlling a billion robots, and can do anything a billion robots can do, but can't do anything that requires more than the oversight of a single human for the entire project. (In est, Google is the player-character in Factorio.)

Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#48
post #18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since they pushed Excite out of this business, who will take up the slack?

Stucked in time: http://www.excite.com/

and yet it has a ranking of 8,689 with huge traffic uptick since Jan 17 as per Alexa today .... does that mean people still use it regularly?

Re: Google Site Search will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018

#49
This actually is making me fairly frustrating. Me and my team were literally just finishing the GSS integration and all of the sudden the only option google is suggesting is "will automatically convert to Custom Search Engine (CSE). Custom Search Engine is an ads-supported product "
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