Google ends free full-web Programmable Search Engine access; developers must migrate to paid Vertex AI Search or Enterprise-Full-Web by January 1, 2027.
Key Takeaways
New Programmable Search Engines are capped at 50 domains; the “Search the entire web” option is gone for new engines.
Existing engines exceeding 50 domains must migrate to Vertex AI Search or a custom-priced Enterprise-Full-Web tier by the deadline.
Custom Search JSON API is also being discontinued; implementations must be ported before January 2027.
Previous paid API pricing ran ~$5 per 1,000 requests; Vertex AI Search has no public pricing and requires a quote form.
WordPress plugins, Drupal modules, indie search tools, educational, and non-profit use cases are most exposed; self-hosted options like Meilisearch, Typesense, and Elasticsearch exist but lack Google index freshness.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters flag that Common Crawl, the most-cited open alternative, updates only monthly and has limited crawl scope, making it a poor drop-in replacement for real-time index needs.
