The early version of the Google Images API was officially depreciated on the 26th May, 2011. Despite that, it will continue to work with some restrictions until such time as Google officially pulls the plug. With additional limitations – and more functionality – the image search is survived by the Google Custom Search API. With the new Google Custom Search API, it permits you to develop websites and programs to retrieve and display search results from Google Custom Search programmatically.
Details on how to use the API (both depreciated and Google Search) are available here and here. The scope of this post is limited to very basic usage… simply because they’re examples I’ve used in the past.
Function to Retrieve The Last 32 Images from the Depreciated API
This is a very basic function I’ve used in the past. Before you use it, you should be aware of your legal obligations. It will retrieve 32 image URL’s. While the data returned is quite significant, it’s only the image URL that I was interested in (when I wrote this).
<?php
$start = array(0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28);
foreach ($start as &$p) {
// Use your IP and your own query term (q)
$jsrc = "https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/images?v=1.0&q=aircraft&userip=12.345.67.890&start=$p";
$json = file_get_contents($jsrc);
$jset = json_decode($json, true);
for($i=0;$i<4;$i=$i+1) {
$image = $jset['responseData']['results'][$i]['url'];
echo "$image<br>";
$ImagesArray[] = $image;
}
}
// Print the Image array
echo "<pre>";
print_r($ImagesArray);
echo "</pre>";
?>
Refining search by passing parameters in the query string
You may refine the nature of images returned by passing additional criteria in the search URL. They are listed, in part, as follows:
as_filetype=jpgrestricts results to JPG images
as_filetype=pngrestricts results to PNG images
as_filetype=gifrestricts results to GIF images
as_filetype=bmprestricts results to BMP images
Searching by licence type:
as_rights=cc_publicdomain restricts search results to images with the publicdomain label.
as_rights=cc_attributerestricts search results to images with the attribute label.
as_rights=cc_sharealikerestricts search results to images with the sharealike label.
as_rights=cc_noncommercialrestricts search results to images with the noncomercial label.
as_rights=cc_nonderivedrestricts search results to images with the nonderived label.
Searching by specific site:
as_sitesearch=photobucket.com
Searching by color:
imgcolor=black
imgcolor=blue
imgcolor=brown
imgcolor=gray
imgcolor=green
imgcolor=orange
imgcolor=pink
imgcolor=purple
imgcolor=red
imgcolor=teal
imgcolor=white
imgcolor=yellow
Searching by Image Size
imgsz=iconrestricts results to small images
imgsz=small|medium|large|xlargerestricts results to medium-sized images
imgsz=xxlargerestricts results to large images
imgsz=hugerestricts resykts to extra-large images
Searching by Image Type
imgtype=facerestricts results to images of faces.
imgtype=photorestricts results to photographic images.
imgtype=clipartrestricts results to clipart images.
imgtype=lineartrestricts results to line drawing images.
A full list of all available parameters are available here. The parameter of userip=12.345.67.890 is important. It should be set to the IP address of the user making the request; Image automation is not permitted.
Retrieve a Single Image from the Google Search Page
If you’re just after a single result, you may want to consider mining the image results from the default search page. The following function will do just that — pull up the first page and retrieve the first image URL. You can use the custom (or advanced) search to narrow or refine your result.
The legality of this technique is somewhat questionable and a copyright will likely apply to the image returned (even when a public domain search is conducted).
<?php
$link = "http://images.google.com/images?q=flying&tbm=isch";
$code = file_get_contents($link,'r');
ereg ("imgurl=http://www.[A-Za-z0-9-]*.[A-Za-z]*[^.]*.[A-Za-z]*", $code, $img);
ereg ("http://(.*)", $img[0], $img_pic);
$firstImage = $img_pic[0];
$firstImage = trim("$firstImage");
echo "$firstImage<br><br>";
// Display image
echo "<img src=\"$firstImage\">";
?>
More from the Google Search API another time! Download the above code here.
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Download: Google Image Search API |
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About Marty
Marty has been involved with online application development for a number of years and has worked with large scale applications both as a coder and project manager. He is currently actively contributing to 7 blogs and maintains over 300 websites. 
BeliefMedia Pty Limited. BeliedMedia is a media company based in Sydney, Australia. We specialise in all facets of media, including: online marketing, podcast production, programming, software development, Android/iDevice development, voiceovers and television production. Make contact with us via our
I’m interested in using the “Retrieve a Single Image from the Google Search Page” in my WordPress sidebar.
What I want to do is to display the image corresponding to the category name (%category%) of the post.
What part of the code mentioned above should I change to make it dinamic?
Should it be like this:
<?php
$link = "http://images.google.com/images?q=&tbm=isch“;
$code = file_get_contents($link,’r');
ereg (“imgurl=http://www.[A-Za-z0-9-]*.[A-Za-z]*[^.]*.[A-Za-z]*”, $code, $img);
ereg (“http://(.*)”, $img[0], $img_pic);
$firstImage = $img_pic[0];
$firstImage = trim(“$firstImage”);
echo “$firstImage”;
// Display image
echo “”;
?>
HI Ahmed. I’d suggest you do it with shortcode to save you messing around with your theme’s files. Where do you want the image?
Keep in mind that this is questionably legal. You really wouldn’t want to indiscriminately render any image on your page without considering the legal/copyright implications.
Give me 10 minutes and I’ll post some test code.
Hi again,
I’ve written this without really testing it beyond one page so I’m not sure it’ll always work. URL’s will cache for 3 hours. It’ll scrape the Google Page (perhaps use cURL) and it won’t use the API.
[googlepic]will render an image associated with the current category…. while[googlepic term="cat"]will render an image based on the defined term.You’ll probably want to locally cache the image and you’ll amost certainly have to resize it using GD or similar.
Be careful using this. Copyright restrictions apply.
function GetGooglePic($atts) { extract(shortcode_atts(array( 'term' => '', 'cache' => '10800' // 60*60*3 (3 hours) ), $atts)); $GoogleImageCache = 'gimglink_' . $term; $cachedposts = get_transient($GoogleImageCache); if ($cachedposts !== false) { $firstImage == $cachedposts; } else { if ($term) { $link = "http://images.google.com/images?q=$term&tbm=isch"; } else { // Have to get category name (for query) $terms = get_the_terms( $post->ID , 'category'); if($terms) { foreach( $terms as $term ) { $cat_obj = get_term($term->term_id, 'category'); $cat_slug = $cat_obj->slug; } } // return $cat_slug; $link = "http://images.google.com/images?q=$cat_slug&tbm=isch"; } // Now get the pic and cache $code = file_get_contents($link,'r'); ereg ("imgurl=http://www.[A-Za-z0-9-]*.[A-Za-z]*[^.]*.[A-Za-z]*", $code, $img); ereg ("http://(.*)", $img[0], $img_pic); $firstImage = $img_pic[0]; $firstImage = trim("$firstImage"); } // Apply function to do something with returned link return $firstImage; } add_shortcode('googlepic','GetGooglePic');I should have mentioned that, as always, the code will have to be pasted in your theme’s functions.php file. Let me know if you have problems.