Google Custom Search

It never ceases to amaze me just how much stuff Google has going on behind the scenes.

My latest find is something called Google Custom Search (CSE) which, as the name implies, lets you build your own little customized search engine. The service launched in October 2006 and it took five months before I even realized it existed.

Customization is achieved by limiting the search to certain domains or by blocking others, which makes it ideal for, say, adding a blog search widget to your sidebar.

As always, monetization helps, so you can link your custom search engine to your Adsense account and make some extra moolah in the process.

I tried adding this to one of my blogs (not this one) last night, and the whole process took around five minutes or so (would have been faster if my 'net connection was up to snuff). The only part of the process that confused me was when I had to 'grant permission' to my custom search engine from within my Adsense account. The error message in CSE wasn't explicit enough for this sleepy head. hehe.

Anyway, do check it out. For more information, there's always the official Google Custom Search Blog.