To run shortest_search.py you need an API key for Google’s Custom Search JSON/Atom API which you can get here. If you don’t want to do that you can just play around in the sandbox version. It doesn’t search, but does generate search suggestions.

ShortestSearch

Program to find the shortest phrase to Google to ensure a given URL is the first result*

Motivation

Standard URLs are hard to remember and take too long to type; URL-shorteners give links that are quicker to type but even harder to remember; and when instructing someone to Google something we often give them too much information.

This aims to perfect the art of “It should be the first result if you Google ‘x y z’ “.

Examples

Input: “https://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans

Output: “TED VEST

Input: “http://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html

Output: “WRITING BRIEFLY


Note: Google’s search results are location and user dependent, therefore:

*Some URLs may have no such phrase