Introduction
Search Expander provides an API and JavaScript client library for injecting rich content into search engine results pages. It reads your search page's query and results, and uses this data to provide various types of content into containers on the page:
- Knowledge Panel: Contains textual information, links, images, and other media relevant to the search query and results. This content is drawn from a variety of third-party sources and presented in a tabbed interface.
- Instant Answers: Contains one of a number of widgets, focused on providing a single relevant piece of information or interactivity. For example, a succinct answer to a question such as "What is X's age"; a calculator widget for a query such as "Online calculator"; or a weather widget for a query such as "Weather in Madrid".
- Media thumbnail bar: Contains a carousel of thumbnail links, generated in response to clicking on a link inside the knowledge panel. For example, clicking on a thumbnail in a list of albums will trigger a search request and provide this list in a bar above the search results.
- Top bar: Contains search suggestion links based on the current results. Clicking these links will trigger a more refined search request. For example, if the current topic is a musical artist, the top bar will contain suggestions such as "Top Songs", "Albums", and so on.
Many of the links inside these widgets will trigger further searches on your page.
You can check out a simple integration of Search Expander at www.searchomega.com.
The Search Expander API does not normally need to be contacted directly. The JavaScript library
will take care of making the necessary requests. On the client-side, the library will set a
global function called sxpr(), which must be called when the page's search results are available.
Widget HTML will be downloaded and added into containers you have specified via markup or JavaScript,
appropriate CSS will be loaded, and widget behaviour will be initialized.
The Integrating Search Expander page details the steps you need to follow to integrate Search Expander into your page. For guidance on privacy and security, check out the page on Private Search Engines.
The appearance and behaviour of Search Expander widgets is highly customisable. Once you have a
Search Expander account, you can try out various settings via the search engine preview page at
https://www.searchexpander.com/account/search-engine/<search-engine-id>. This preview page will
provide example JavaScript which you can use on your search results page.
If you have any questions, please contact us!