Google Blog Search in ASP.Net

Sanjeeb Lenka
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Article

Introduction

This article describes how to add a Google Blog search feature in ASP.Net. Here I will describe how to communicate with the Google Search API.

Description

Since it is third party software, we require a third-party DLL to be referenced by our application that will communicate with the Google server.

For this we must download the Google Search API:

GoogleSearchAPI.dll

You can download it from the source code attached to this article.

Or from this link: http://google-api-for-dotnet.googlecode.com/files/GoogleSearchAPI_0.3.1.zip

Design

Now add one TextBox, one Button and one Datalist.

In the Datalist I used one Linkbutton to show the search result title and HyperLink to show the Recent post.
Two labels, one to show Content and another to show Author name and published Date.

Design your screen as in the following screen.

Or you can copy the following source code:

<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server" Width="300px"></asp:TextBox>
        <asp:Button ID="btnSearch" runat="server" Text="Google Blog Search" OnClick="Button1_Click" /><br />
        <asp:DataList ID="dlSearch" runat="server" Width="600px">
            <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton1" runat="server" Text='<%#Eval("Title") %>' PostBackUrl='<%#Eval("Url")%>'></asp:LinkButton><br />
                <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%#Eval("Content") %>'></asp:Label><br />
                <asp:HyperLink ID="HyperLink1" runat="server" NavigateUrl='<%#Eval("PostUrl") %>'>Recent Post</asp:HyperLink><br/>
<asp:Label ID="Label2" runat="server" Text='<%# "(Publisher:"+Eval("Author")+")"+Eval("PublishDate") %>' ForeColor="Green"></asp:Label>
                <br /><br />
            </ItemTemplate>
            <FooterTemplate>
                <asp:Label Visible='<%#bool.Parse((dlSearch.Items.Count==0).ToString())%>' runat="server"                    ID="lblNoRecord" Text="No Record Found!"></asp:Label>
            </FooterTemplate>
        </asp:DataList>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>

Now go to the code view.

Next add a reference of the following Google Search API DLL to your website:

GoogleSearchAPI.dll

And write the following code in the .cs file:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Data;
using Google.API.Search;
public partial class GoogleBlogSearch : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (!IsPostBack)
        {
            dlSearch.DataSource = null;
            dlSearch.DataBind();
            TextBox1.Text = "";
        }
    }
    protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        DataTable dt = new DataTable();
        dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Title", typeof(string)));
        dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Content", typeof(string)));
        dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Url", typeof(string)));
        dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("PostUrl", typeof(string)));
        dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Author", typeof(string)));
        dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("PublishDate", typeof(string)));
        GblogSearchClient client = new GblogSearchClient("");
        IList<IBlogResult> results = client.Search(TextBox1.Text, 30);
        foreach (IBlogResult result in results)
        {
            DataRow dr = dt.NewRow();
            dr["Title"] = result.Title.ToString();
            dr["Content"] = result.Content.ToString();
            dr["Url"] = result.BlogUrl;
            dr["PostUrl"] = result.PostUrl;
            dr["Author"] = result.Author;
            dr["PublishDate"] = result.PublishedDate;
            dt.Rows.Add(dr);
        }
        dlSearch.DataSource = dt;
        dlSearch.DataBind();
    }
}

In the code above I passed the TextBox value in the button click to the Google server.

After getting the result I bound it to the datatable then to the datalist control.

Just check these two lines:

GblogSearchClient client = new GblogSearchClient ("www.c-sharpcorner.com");
IList<IBlogResult> results = client.Search(TextBox1.Text, 30);

In the first line I am passing "www.c-sharpcorner.com" as the Client because it required a hosted site for security purposes.

If you don't pass that then it will show an exception.

In the second line I am passing 30 and a TextBox value. Here 30 specifies to get 30 search results.

So you can increase or decrease this value as needed.

Now build your application. Enter a search query then press the button.

It will show all the Google Blog search results.