it's easy to create a custom google search engine

Most of us have been building a collection of web sites we turn to when we want to do research for business, school, health, activism or hobbies.  And just about everyone uses google for broader searching on various topics - but most searches yield thousands of results. 

You can combine the capabilities of google with the work you've done as a curator of web sites to build a search tool that simplifies your own research and gives other people the benefit of your knowledge to find better information.  It can also promote your site or sites you support - as long as they have a depth and quality of information that will lead to valuable searches.

I've created the search engine below to provide relevant searches on local and sustainable food, cooking, farming and the policy and politics of food and agriculture.  It uses 48 different web sites and blogs which have the best information I've seen on these topics - so the chances of getting dead end results are minimal.  Try it and let me know what you think.

 

 

 

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The home page for this search engine is here.

Read on for information about how to create  your own search engine, invite people to contribute to it, link to it - or put it on a web site or blog.

Here's what you do:

Put together a list of links related to your search topics, in a format that's easy to cut and paste from.

Then go to google's create a custom search engine page.  You will need to set up a google account if you don't have one.

It's pretty self explanatory.  Just pay attention to the formatting tips:

Formatting your URLs

• Individual pages: Specifying www.mysite.com/mypage.html will just include the mypage.html page on www.mysite.com.


• Entire sites: Specifying www.mysite.com/* will include all the pages on www.mysite.com.


• Parts of sites: You can use wildcard patterns to include just certain parts of a site. For example, www.mysite.com/*about* will include only files on www.mysite.com that have about in their name.


• Entire domains: You can also specify an entire domain using *.mydomain.com. If you specify mydomain.com, we will automatically convert this to *.mydomain.com/*. If this is not what you want, you can change it back in the control panel.

Select the standard edition (free) - and no ads if you're a non-profit/government/academic organization.

Follow the instructions to complete the search engine.  You can add collaborators later if you'd like.  And you'll be given some choices about how you want the box to look. 

Once the search engine is done, you'll be given a link to the home page, and from there you can manage and edit the search engine. 

When you click on the code link from the home page, choose the option to host on a non-google page (unless you are using a google page!) - and, ideally, select the 1 page option.  Either will work, but keeping people on a single page makes for a better user experience.  The fewer clicks, the faster you get what you need when you're on a site. 

You'll just have to add the address of the web site you'll be putting it on before google generates the code for cutting and pasting - so it's one additional step.

You can then  copy and paste it to a page on your site, your social network page, into a blog post, share it on a page in google or yahoo groups - or email the code to the person who maintains your site! 

Comments

[Dropshippers]

Thanks for the useful info

[SEO Services]

Nice post ! it seems to be interesting for website developments , adding .com extension to your name and blog is great .

[Website Design]

I agree your domain , groups , sub parts , network , blog post , all are key concern in bringing web uplift in search engines .

[jeff paul forum]

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