Google Site Search

I have to confess. I've wanted to add a search feature to acousticdimensions.com for some time now, but I didn't have the programming chops to pull it off. And, if I was going to spend money on adding features, I had a long list of other things I would hire a programmer for before I got to a search function.  After all, if you really want to search a site, all you have to do is go to your favorite search engine, type your search term, then add site: and the name of the site you want to search (ie. Digital World site:churchproduction.com).

But, most of the people who visit your site won't want to take that step, and now that Google has made it easy for you to add a site search, they don't have to.  Here's the thing, Google Site Search does more than simply add a search to your site. It actually creates a custom search engine where you set the parameters. So you can do things like add synonyms which will enable visitors find documents with related terms without having to issue multiple queries. (Which is incredibly handy if you have a church name that has an often mistaken spelling such as Crosspointe instead of Crosspoint or if you have a Biblical name in your title such as Emannuel or Emanuel or Emmanuel. (Don't ask me which one is actually right.)  You can also date bias which will influence search ranking based on the age of the documents or target the top search results from specific sections of your website.

The cost is about $100 (far cheaper than custom programming) and It is actually fairly simple to set up--though if you want specialized formatting, you might need to contact a friend for a CSS tutorial. (I will tell you that I battled with the modal overlay at acousticdimensions.com until I figured out their naming conventions to set the z-index.)

Google Site Search can also be used for far more than just adding search to your existing website.  Take blackle.com for example. The designers at Heap Media used their Google Site Search to create an energy efficient search engine.  The idea is that Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. A given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen. You could create a search engine that mines data from sites that you preselect. So, you might do something like set up a site search that simply references the businesses of everybody in your church. Or the websites of your favorite Christian artists. Or hopefully, you will think of something far more creative than the two things I've just mentioned and do something that no one else has even thought of before. (Blackle is already taken.)

Post a Comment

Comment limit: 500 characters (about 100 words).
Inappropriate or offensive comments will be promptly removed.

Your Name/Handle: