Dec 25 2007
Google Custom Search Engine
Several years ago, the features and capabilities of search engines had reached a plateau, with very little difference between one search engine and another. The only thing setting them apart was the number of websites in their respective indices. When Google came into being, it set new standards for web search, making more content on the Internet accessible than ever before. Today, Google has become synonymous with web search, and has even become a verb in conversational language.
Over the years, Google’s offering has expanded from web search to an entire range of complementing products and services. These are featured on Google’s Products page, and include Gmail, Google Calendar, iGoogle, Google Reader and many more. Google Labs is a special section of Google which features new products and services available to users for beta testing and evaluation. Among these products is Google Custom Search Engine, and is the subject of the discussion in this article.
Essentially, Google Custom Search Engine is a customizable version of the popular Google web search engine, and is part of the Google Co-op initiative to help webmasters provide a more personalized user experience through customization. By implementing Google Custom Search Engine on their servers, businesses can harness the power of Google Search on their own websites, corporate intranets, or a collection of sites on the Internet. At the same time, webmasters and businesses can include their own branding and color scheme to make the search seamless with their website.
An important thing to keep in mind is that content providers can choose to host the Google search box and web results on their own servers. This makes their website independent of Google’s servers and operates as a mini, specialized version of Google. Users who do not wish to load their servers with web traffic, or do not have the required resources to host Google Custom Search Engine on their own servers can opt to have Google host it as well.
Getting started with your own Google Custom Search Engine is easy and free. During the sign up process, you are able to specify which keywords predominantly describe your website or service. Additionally, you can also specify certain websites which Google Custom Search Engine should give priority to when performing searches. You can also limit your search to a few websites or let the search engine perform a full web search (which would show similar results to Google’s web search).
Besides being able to seamlessly integrate the power of Google in their websites, webmasters also stand to make money with AdSense for Search, which shows relevant advertisements in the search results. This highlights an important point which explains Google’s part of the bargain, which effectively multiplies Google’s advertisement revenue with the number of websites which utilize Google Custom Search Engine. If you are a webmaster, and want to incorporate a powerful search tool for your users, and want to increase your web traffic revenue, you should give Google Custom Search Engine a try and see the results for yourself.