Web Design Articles
articles indexGoogle Custom Search Engine
11 March 07
As your web site grows you need to make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. A Search Box is useful as it allows visitors to type a word or phrase and see a list of relevant pages rather than hunting through lots of links.
You could spend time building a web site search facility from scratch but there is an easier way - you can use free Site Search code from search engines like MSN and Google.
Google has offered a basic Site Search tool for several years but recently it has begun letting users create their own Custom Search Engine. This enables you to build a specialised search engine for your web site using Google technology.
You can use your knowledge of relevant web sites to tailor your search engine to show only results that match the kinds of things your visitors are looking for, or instead just show results from certain pages on your own site.
You can also invite other users to contribute to the search engine and then approve any useful sites they suggest.
The search box and results can be customised and integrated into your web page code so that visitors remain within your site, even though it is Google that is delivering the search results.
The Custom Search Engine can also be used with AdSense to make some money from advertising on your search pages.
You are also able to add search boxes you find on other web sites to your own personalised Google home page.
Google Custom Search Engine is a useful free tool for easily creating a search facility for your web site, but it also has the potential to be used for more advanced tasks in the future.
