In one example implementation computer executable instructions are executed to provide an application program interface (API) to an online resource search system. The instructions are executed to receive a get recommendation (get rec) web enabled function call from a client network node to get recommendation information ordered by at least one of similarity, popularity, and distance. The function call can include a geographic location identifier, a radius identifier, a tag identifier, an item identifier, a global or local search flag, and a user identifier as parameters. The instructions can be executed to respond to the getrec function call by returning a number of recommendations, a number of uses, and a set of tags.