Improved Google Custom Search - Cool New Features Added

I am not able to track down an origin date for the Google Custom Search feature, but I first used it in January of 2007 on a workstation page for a friend's business. At the time I chose it to deliver her the searching power of Google and the ability to customize it for her business.

The options recently have improved greatly! If you run a quick search in my left column you will see I was able to add my logo (100px or under), my colors (for all attributes), and the best feature of all....by default I can decide what sites are searched, instead of just 1. The search on this Blog searches the Cog, the Cog Forum, and the Blog Posts for maximum coverage of you query. Once your results are displayed I left the option in the search mechanism to switch to regular Google search should you need or want to at that point.

The engine even has refinement labels, they are like categories for vertical search options to prioritize the results based of labels. The way it works is you add a label or refinement as they call it, then flip back to the site screen and label a site under the same label to prioritize the results if a user clicks that label. The only problem is, its not automatic, you will have to add every page..IE post, article, etc. and then label it to make it work. Still cool though, if you just develop the habit every time you Blog, then it wouldn't be so bad....and it would be highly effective.

There is a business option for $USD 100.00 a year for up to 5000 pages that removes all Ads, displays XML feed of search results, allows webmasters to reorder(fix) the results as the like, you get Google email support, removal of the Google brand, and you can add phone support for additional money. Get this though...business edition cannot add web search. Probably because of the feature where they can rig the results page.

I am no programmer, but here you can upload custom annotations. It also says that the Ajax Api can be used to manipulate how results are searched and displayed.

Last but not least this page contains the full documentation on the Custom Search Engine Project. Sometimes Google just gets it right!

Peace and SEO

Baby

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