The big news in the world of Internet Search recently has been the release of Google Custom Search. Its announcement has been covered extensively in the blogging world, including here, here, here and here. There is even a custom Google search for Philosophy Resources!
However, there hasn't been much discussion on ways for Publishers to leverage this type of custom search for their web sites or blogs. So, without further ado, here is a list of ways to use the Google Custom Search on your blog or web site:
1. Web site search:
Provide a search capability for your entire site. Very useful to users once you have a lot of articles or posts.
2. Specialized / Vertical Search:
Search a set of authoritative sites specific to your industry or vertical to provide relevant content, automatically getting rid of spam. For example, a general purpose search could include results from high-quality sites like Wikipedia, About.com and Business.com; a travel search could include results from Expedia and Fodors, and so on.
3. User-branded custom searches:
Provide a way for your power users to create their own branded searches of your original content (possibly mixed with other search results), e.g. a financial web site could allow a trading expert to create a search for options trading strategies. This gets users engaged and allows you to leverage their expertise (and their brand) for your web site. As an example, see "Debra Messing's Online Shopping Search" at Rollyo.
4. Custom Search bookmarks:
Allow end users to bookmark custom search results on your site. This increases the stickiness of your site and provides a starting point for community features like most popular bookmarks, tag clouds, etc.
5. Partnered Search:
Create integrated custom searches that combine your results with those of complementary, high-quality web sites, e.g. a medical group could provide a search for disease information that rolls up their own content with data from other sources like the National Institutes of Health. (Note: This is like a combination of 1 & 3, but more partner-oriented, in order to provide a complete/canned solution for popular searches.)
6. Improved Results Display:
Implement search results refinements to help users find information more easily. (Shameless plug: here's my earlier post on potential improvements to the Google search results page.)
7. Mashups:
Create applications that incorporate custom search results or make search-based functionality available through an API to encourage the creation of mashups that include your content. Note: Be careful to make sure that you are still in compliance with Google's TOS with these features; if not, check if any of the other providers in this space - like Yahoo, Eurekster or Rollyo - fit the bill.
The key challenge for any Internet search is to find results that are relevant, authoritative and comprehensive. As a strong payer within your niche (no matter how narrowly that niche is defined), you should be able to utilize your deep domain knowledge to address user information needs with ease. This is a great way to further unlock the value of your original content.
You can also submit for free your cse at http://www.coopdir.com
Its a directory exclusively for cse created with google co-op, and the only one for the time being.
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