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Create Your Very Own Google Customized Search Engine
By Kim Roach (c) 2006

Google has recently announced their latest product, the Google
Custom Search Engine (http://tinyurl.com/ygp2mu), enabling
anyone to build their very own vertical search engine.

This new product can be compared to Eurekster
(http://www.eurekster.com/) , Yahoo! Search Builder
(http://builder.search.yahoo.com/), or Rollyo (www.rollyo.com/).

What makes this product unique is that it is built upon Google's
highly successful search platform.

In their official announcement, Google said....

"We want to make it easy for anyone to create a search engine
about all of their favorite topics, without needing a Ph.D.,"
said Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User
Experience. "Everyone - businesses, organizations, moms, dads,
teenagers, and teachers - can harness the power of Google
technology to create a personalized search experience that
reflects specific knowledge and interests."

Google custom search (http://www.google.com/coop/cse/) allows
you to quickly create your own search engine by choosing which
websites and directories you want to include in your index.

You can include only those sites or give those particular sites a
higher ranking while still including the larger Google index.

Here are some of the other benefits you will find in Google
Custom Search:

- Add hundreds or even thousands of urls to your customized
  search engine.
- Exclude certain results or directories from different sites.
- Place a search box and search results on your own website.
- Customize the look and feel to match your website.
- Invite others to contribute to the search engine.
- Add refinement labels that help your users narrow their search
  phrases to a particular sub-set of topics.
- Make money from relevant Adsense ads in your search results.

Another interesting feature is the capability to add Custom
search engines to your Google homepage. You can put the
"Add to Google" button on your website in order to allow your
visitors to quickly add your search engine to their Google
homepage.

Other features include a bookmarklet (Google Marker) that allows
you to quickly add sites to your search engine while you are
surfing the Web. In fact, you can even allow volunteers to edit
your search engine and add new sites.

Just for fun, I created my own customized Google search engine
using 50 of my favorite internet marketing sites. Try it out at

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=002768785374102624435%3A1emczrbchqw

You can find some other real-life examples at

http://www.google.com/coop/cse/examples/

According to Matt Cutts
(http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/review-custom-search-engine/),
this tool has much more potential than most people will realize.
Below is a quote from Matt on where he thinks this new product
might be headed.

"For example, the first person to make a truly kick-butt search
engine about biking will likely start to attract volunteers and
traction and first-mover attention, and could very well become
the authority search for that niche. I think that this launch
could kick off a wave of search over a long tail of niches;
rather than a big vertical like "health," someone could make a
search for the much much smaller "health at every size"
movement. Or juggling. Or insurance companies. Imagine your
favorite niche, which could be as specific as a small-town or
as broad as you want."

These customized search engines have the potential to play a
major role in the overall search scene by providing increased
value to the end user.

You can now create search that is free from spam. As the
publisher, you get to choose exactly which sites represent
the expertise and knowledge you want to share.

Specialized search engines also allow Google to dig deeper
into niche topics without developing their own vertical search
engines. Topic experts can now quickly and easily create a
search engine that delivers the very best information on a
particular topic, whether it be basket weaving or teleseminar
marketing.

When you are looking for general information, Google is great,
but when you really want to dig deep into a particular topic,
these specialized search engines will provide much more value.

Custom search engines also solve one of search's biggest
problems: ambiguity of language. If you go to Google right now
and look up the term, "bass", you will find results ranging from
musical instruments to fishing supplies.

However, when someone creates their own custom search engine
about bass fishing, this problem no longer exists. The same is
true for the web publisher who creates a vertical search engine
about bass guitars. Google Co-Op helps the search engine to
understand the user's intent.

As more and more customized search engines are created, Google
will have essentially created a layer of specialized search
engines on top of it's main index.

Google vice president of Search Products and User Experience
Marissa Mayer was quoted at InternetNews.com
(http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3639606) as saying,
"We would like to see millions of small search engines built
on top of the Google search engine that deploy the expertise
and knowledge of our end users."

As you can see, the possibilities for customized search
engines are only limited by our imaginations. It will
certainly be interesting to see what other web publishers
create. In the meantime, here are some interesting
possibilities that go beyond the traditional.

Possibilities:

- Job search engine for SEO specialists
- Compository search of 100+ social bookmarking sites
  (http://tinyurl.com/y4l6np)
- Video search engine (http://tinyurl.com/sbrfv)
- Digital Camera Reviews
  (http://www.customsearchguide.com/cses/nskycbijzpm)
- Political search engines that promote a particular slant.
  Research a political issue and find all conservative or
  liberal views.
- Search engine that covers a particular sports team or athlete.
- U.S. Newspaper Search
  (http://www.customsearchguide.com/cses/ngovboh-daq)
- Niche Shopping Engine just for tech gadgets
  ( http://tinyurl.com/ymvs4q) : Search for lasers, hovercraft,
  and the latest tech toys.

While Google's custom search engine offers a world of
possibilities, there are also many features that would make
great additions to this new technology.

Below is a wish list of possible new features. Many of the
following ideas came from an interview with Shashi Seth, lead
product manager for Google Co-Op. (http://tinyurl.com/ydty5v)

Wish List of New Features:

- The ability to rank sites in order of importance. Give Web
  developers more control over which sites rank the highest.

- Usage Statistics

- The ability to show default Google results and CSE results
  side-by-side.

- The option to add A Eurekster/Swicki "buzz cloud"

- A directory created by Google of all CSEs.

By now you can probably see that these new custom search engines
have the potential to offer exceptional value to the end-user.
However, these new technologies also hold implications about the
future of Google search.

What Google Co-Op says about the Future of Search

Shashi Seth, Product Lead for the new Custom Search Engine
stated, "We are trying to shore up our algorithms with the
wisdom of the crowds. We know we are not always the expert in
every topic in every domain,"

Personalized and social search are quickly coming upon us.

Customized Search is one of Google's first steps into the realm
of social search. It is allowing web publishers of all skills
to create their own search engine dedicated to their particular
branchof knowledge and interests. The social part comes in when
the web publisher allows others to contribute selections to
their search engine, growing your search engine into an even
more valuable resource over time.

Social search is all about giving the power to the users. Google
is empowering users by enabling them to slice their massive
search engine into thousands of sub-topics.

The question now is, "How will Google use this collective
knowledge?"

This new product could give them a wealth of data on the linking
structure and popularity of websites around the Web, giving them
yet another competitive advantage over other search engines.

Google could also use this new data to find authority sites
among different topics, which could be very valuable information
for improving mainstream search results.

Would these kinds of changes affect the world of search engine
optimization? To some degree, they would, but for the most part
these changes would simply improve upon the relevancy of results.

For the smart webmaster, they should have no trouble adapting to
this new age of search. Quality has always served well for search
engine rankings and the future of search is even more dependent
upon quality content and authoritative websites.
================================================================
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews
(http://www.sitepronews.com) and SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com)
newsletters. You can also find additional tips and news on
webmaster and SEO topics by Kim at the SiteProNews blog
(http://blog.sitepronews.com/). Kim’s email is: kim @ seo-news.com
================================================================

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