Moving from Google Programmable Search
This guide shows how to replace Google Programmable Search (formerly Custom Search) on your site with Site Search 360. It covers indexing your sites, replacing the Google search box or JSON API calls, recreating your old setup, and testing before you switch Google off.
What's Changing at Google, and Does It Affect You
Google is ending parts of Programmable Search on January 1, 2027. Site search with Google isn't going away entirely: what you need to do depends on which Google product you use.
The facts in this section are as of October 2026 and may change. Check Google's announcement from January 20, 2026 for the latest details.
You use the Custom Search JSON API
You need to move by January 1, 2027.
- The Custom Search JSON API is closed to new customers. Existing customers have until January 1, 2027 to move.
- Until then, the API costs $5 per 1,000 queries, with 100 queries per day free and a maximum of 10,000 queries per day.
- Google's suggested replacement for up to 50 domains is Vertex AI Search. Website search needs its Enterprise edition, which costs $4.00 per 1,000 queries and runs in a Google Cloud project. See Vertex AI Search pricing.
To move to Site Search 360, follow Index Your Sites, then If You Used the JSON API.
Your search engine covers more than 50 domains or the entire web
You need to move by January 1, 2027.
- Search Element engines that search more than 50 domains or "the entire web" must move by January 1, 2027. Google asks these customers to register their interest in its full web search solution.
- Since January 20, 2026, new engines can only use "Sites to search", with a maximum of 50 domains.
To move to Site Search 360, follow Index Your Sites, then Replace the Google Search Box.
You use the free Search Element with 50 or fewer domains
There's no deadline: the free Search Element continues. It shows ads, except for verified nonprofits, schools, and government bodies, which can turn ads off.
You may still want to switch to get search without ads or Google branding, control over which results appear, and analytics on what your visitors search for. If so, follow Index Your Sites, then Replace the Google Search Box.
You can try Site Search 360 on the Free plan before you change anything on your live site. The Free plan includes 150 entries and 1,000 searches per month and needs no credit card. Paid plans start at $9 per month and include email support.
Index Your Sites
Google searched its own index of your site. Site Search 360 builds a separate index of your content, so this is the first step.
Add your content in the Control Panel in one of two ways:
- Root URL — enter your homepage in Website Crawling and the crawler follows links from there.
- Sitemap — submit your sitemap in Sitemap Indexing. The crawler picks up only the URLs listed in the sitemap.
See Starting the Crawler for both methods.
Search Several Domains in One Index
If your Google engine searched several sites — for example, a main site, a blog subdomain, and a department site — you can combine them in one Site Search 360 index:
- Enter one root URL per site in Website Crawling.
- Submit a combined sitemap, or several sitemaps (one per line), in Sitemap Indexing.
See Indexing Multiple Sites for details.
Control What Gets Indexed
To keep pages out of the index or limit the crawler to certain sections of your site, see Crawler Settings. For a full walkthrough of indexing and refining results, see Setting Up Your Search.
Replace the Google Search Box
Once your index is ready, swap the Google code on your site for Site Search 360.
Remove the Google Code
The Google Search Element is made of a script tag and one or more <div> elements. Look for code like this in your site template and remove it:
<script async src="https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx=YOUR_ENGINE_ID"></script>
<div class="gcse-search"></div>
Your template may use gcse-searchbox, gcse-searchbox-only, gcse-searchresults, or gcse-searchresults-only instead of gcse-search. Remove those as well.
Remove the Google code only after you've tested Site Search 360. See Check Before Switching Google Off.
Add Site Search 360
Choose the install option that fits your site:
- Code snippet — connect a search bar in the Search Designer and add your personal snippet before the closing
</body>tag. You can connect your own existing search input or let Site Search 360 add a new search bar. See Going Live. - WordPress plugin — install the plugin and connect it to your Site Search 360 account. See WordPress Integration.
- Google Tag Manager — add the snippet through a tag instead of editing your template. See Google Tag Manager Integration.
- Other platforms — see Platform Plugins for Shopify, Duda, and other platforms and CMSs.
If You Used the JSON API
If your site called the Google Custom Search JSON API and rendered results with your own code, point those calls at the Site Search 360 search endpoint instead.
The search endpoint works on every plan, including Free, and needs no API key by default:
GET https://global.sitesearch360.com/sites?query={QUERY}&site={SITE_ID}
{SITE_ID}is your site ID.{QUERY}is the search query.
Optional parameters cover filters, sorting, paging, snippets, and highlighting. See Searching in the REST API reference for the full list and the response structure.
Searches through the API count toward your plan's search quota. If you turn on Protect Search Endpoints, every request needs an API key or must come from an allowed host name. API keys are available on the Batman or Batman Pro plan or a custom plan with API access.
Map the Response Fields
The Site Search 360 response format differs from Google's, so your results page needs its field mapping changed. Common equivalents:
| Google JSON API | Site Search 360 |
|---|---|
q parameter | query parameter |
cx parameter | site parameter |
key parameter | Not needed |
start parameter (first result is 1) | offset parameter (number of results to skip, so start=11 becomes offset=10) |
num parameter | limit parameter (maximum 100, default 10) |
items | suggests — results grouped by Result Group, with ungrouped results under _ |
items[].title | name |
items[].link | link |
items[].snippet | content — returned only when includeContent=true |
searchInformation.totalResults | totalResults |
The search endpoint and the indexing API are separate. Searching works on every plan, but adding pages to the index by API needs an API key and a Batman, Batman Pro, or custom plan. See Indexing.
Match Your Old Setup
If you tuned your Google engine with synonyms, promotions, or custom styling, use these features to recreate that behaviour:
- Synonyms — add synonyms and alternate spellings in the Dictionary.
- Pinned and hidden results — pin results to a position or hide them for specific queries with Result Mappings in the Result Manager. Add promoted content or banners with Custom Results.
- Design — match your site's look in the Search Designer, or override styles with custom CSS.
Site Search 360 doesn't import Google promotions or refinements. Recreate the ones you need in the Result Manager.
Check Before Switching Google Off
Test Site Search 360 before you remove the Google code from your live site:
- Run test queries — open Search Preview and try the queries your visitors use most. Testing in Search Preview doesn't count against your search quota.
- Check the index log — make sure the pages you expect are indexed, and fix any errors. See Index Troubleshooting and Index Status Codes.
- Watch Analytics after launch — check popular queries and zero-result queries in Dashboard Analytics, and add synonyms or result mappings where results fall short.
Still comparing options? See Site Search 360 as a Google site search alternative.