Build Your Own Google-Powered Search Engine

eastbayted writes "Google has unveiled a free program called Google Customized Search Engine that lets users tailor a search index to their content specifications, InfoWorld reports. You can select keywords for the index, as well as which Web sites will be included or excluded in the search. You also may customize the look and feel of the engine. The trade-off? When you implement the index on your Web site or blog, it will be populated with Google text ads via Google's lucrative AdSense Program. On the plus side, you do get paid for click-throughs."

Re:Will create a lot more spam sites?

[EVil Lawyer]

Probably not many more than currently exist. Right now (before this new product), it's very easy to set up a nearly all-spam site with Google's AdSense. Google requires only a modicum of content before approving a site to show AdSense ads. This new search engine implementation will probably not drastically change the threshold for setting up an ad-only site.

as long as the user understands the biases

[romit_icarus]

Obviously there are two level of biases here - a. restriction to certain domains b. restriction to certain keywords.

To a user it can be useful: it allows for a focused search. Say you're an industrial engineer and want to constrain your search to a topic. But what's critical to the credibility of google is a way for the user to *know* the biases before using the engine!

Not just about AdSense

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is just about getting more AdSense ads out there.

If you look at the example given in the article, it says:

Web sites already taking advantage of the Google Custom Search Engine include RealClimate.org, a site focused on providing expert opinion about the science of climate change. "They have created a searchable subset of the Web to provide reliable scientific information to its visitors," according to Google.

So am I the only one who sees how Google can also apply this to ranking websites within their index?

site: anyone?

[nstlgc]

Is it just me or is this just a little sugar on top of their site: search keyword?

More "Scraping"

[hagrin]

Although in the minority I'm sure, I look at Google as the largest scraper of content there is. If you think about it, they give users snippets of your original content and then take that content and use it to deliver targeted advertisements before the user even clicks on your content.

Now, enter the same business model, add some revenue sharing and a whole bunch of smaller players with their own domains armed with CSS stylized IFRAMES and you will see the "authoritative portal/directory sites" grow pretty quickly. As someone who creates his own unique content (with no ads currently), moves like this do make me think twice about the future of search and creating content for other people to scrape and profit from. Sure, I understand the point of "without the search engine no one would ever find my site", but at some point content creators have to worry about others profiting off their efforts (/end violin playing).

Re:Will create a lot more spam sites?

[foniksonik]

My first thought when coming to /. to post was that this will bring new life to the parked domains business. All those typical words and word combos that have been sitting there with pitiful link lists on them can now become real search portals. This might actually make them useful though. Go searching for "kitten mittens" and you'll probably soon get a top google result (or maybe even yahoo) for www.kittenmittens.com with a search of all pet, cat and novelty item stores and blogs, etc. which may actually help you find what you're looking for more quickly.

For Desktops?

[m0nstr42]

It would be nice to be able to use this kind of customizability for desktop search.

Sounds like Macros from windows live search

[schngrg]

Competition does results in more 'innovation' from everyone.

Google made MS 'innovate', MS made Google 'innovate'.

Tuning domain specific search without upfront cost

[Amitz Sekali]

Google will be able to harness people's specific expertise to fine tune google's domain specific search, without signing any contract with anybody. That means less administrative and financial commitment, less legal headache, and less legal fees. And because of the adsense program, Google only pay, when Google got payed.

Brilliant, fucking brilliant!

Re:site: anyone?

[iceanfire]

does site: let you search more than one site?

Re:More "Scraping"

[dslauson]

If you add up every cent that Google makes from search-related advertising, and then gave every site they index their "fair" share based on how many times their site was displayed in their search results, I bet your blog (or whatever) would get pennies on the dollar, if even that. It's a different business model than traditional media, and per-site compensation just doesn't make sense.
    Google is compensating you, instead, by driving people to your site. From there, the task of making money is up to you.

"Desktop" version

[AmiMoJo]

I would love to see a "desktop" version of this - i.e. something that can work inside a browser with a plugin or something. In fact, it could probably be done with Greasemonkey...

Imagine being able to type in "NEC 40xx review" and have all the pointless price comparison and fake review sites filters from your results automatically.