Vertex AI Search

An agency managing 15 client sites evaluates Vertex AI Search as a CSE replacement. Setup takes 3 days across Google Cloud console, IAM, and data store configuration. They discover Vertex only supports site-restricted search (up to 50 domains), not open web search. For their open web search needs, they add Scavio as a complementary API: one POST call with an API key, no cloud project needed.

Vertex AI Search is relevant to Google. Scavio provides a unified API to access data from all of these platforms.

Google positions Vertex AI Search as the upgrade path from CSE, but the gap in complexity is significant. CSE was a simple REST API with an API key. Vertex AI Search requires a Google Cloud project, billing account, data store creation, app configuration, and IAM permissions before the first query. Pricing is consumption-based through Google Cloud billing, making it hard to predict costs compared to flat per-query SERP APIs. Vertex supports up to 50 domains for site-restricted search and adds AI-powered ranking and summarization. For teams that need open web search (not site-restricted), Vertex is not a direct replacement -- Google does not offer a public web search API through Vertex. Third-party SERP APIs fill this gap: Scavio ($0.005/query), Serper ($0.30-1.00/1K), and SerpAPI ($10-25/1K) all provide open web search via simple REST endpoints.