Intro

• As you may have found in some commercial database searching, proximity operators can be useful tools for making searches more precise.
• Google does not offer a proximity operator (other than phrase searching), but the company made its "application programming interface" or "API" available for public use. What the API does is make it possible to create programs that interact with the Google search engine.
• Kevin Shay of Staggernation.com has created several API-based applications for use with the Google search engine database, of which the Google API Proximity Search (GAPS) is the most useful.

Search Functionality

• GAPS provides a 1-to-3-word proximity control with a pulldown menu.
• A second pulldown menu allows you to specify that the words be in order from left to right or in either direction from each other.
• You can also employ any of the operators or limits that can be used in the basic entry fields of Google. See the example below.

GAPS Search Interface

• Try the following search out in Google then in the GAPS interface to Google.