Wednesday, May 7, 2008

How To Create Your Money-Making Custom Search Engine Powered By Google

Overview - AdSense for Search Integration With Custom Search

Create a custom, personalized search engine in no time at all

Customize the appearance of search results and ads

Tune results and ads to your site's content and audience

Get more comprehensive site search results with improved indexing

Earn revenue while helping your users find what they're looking for

Key Features

Site Search

If you've worked hard to attract users to your site, so it's understandable that you'd be concerned about those users leaving through web search. Now you can choose to provide just site search so users can find all the information they're looking for on your site, and you can host the search results on your own pages so that they can find that information without leaving your site.

Improved Indexing of your Pages

Google has recently improved its indexing technology so that you can provide a more enhanced Site Search experience to your users. AdSense for search will now index even more pages of your site so that your users will see more results from your site in your AdSense for search results.

Vertical Search

You can also allow your users to search across multiple sites - this could be a network of sites that you own or other related sites that you think your users might find useful. If you write book reviews on your blog, for example, you can use vertical search to specify a list of online bookstores for users to search through. Other examples of vertical searches include computer forums, travel blogs, political sites you endorse, etc.

Tuning Search Results and Ads with Keywords

Search terms can have different meanings in different contexts, so you can now configure your search engine with relevant keywords. Let's say you manage a site about yoga - you can enter keywords such as 'yoga,' 'exercise,' and 'meditation' so that when a user searches for 'mat,' the search results and ads will be more related to yoga mats and less to commercial floor mats. (You can see an example of this in the video below). In research experiments run so far it has been found that this tuning has led to an increase in earnings for web publishers.

Choosing Ad Position

Do you want your AdSense ads to appear at the top and bottom of your search results? Or along the right sidebar as well, just like on Google.com? Now you can make the call on where ads are placed. (Placing ads at the top and right monetizes the best for publishers.)

Quick and Easy Changes and Modifications To Your Setup

Just as you use Google ad management feature to quickly change the settings for your ad and referral units, you'll be able to do the same for your search engine within your AdSense account. Your settings will be saved in your account, so you won't need to generate new search code for each change.

Key Benefits

Help Your Users Find What They're Looking For

Visitors come to your site searching for something specific. Whether that is information, a certain product, entertainment, or just a way to spend time, AdSense for search allows you to enable them to do just that. By offering you new customization options, like what to let your users search and specifying relevant search keywords to Google, AdSense for Search leverages your expert knowledge to show Google search results and targeted ads that are particularly relevant to visitors in the context of your site. As with all AdSense products, Google gives you control over the look and feel of the search results and ads to match your site's look and feel.

Utilize the power of the Google Custom Search Platform

By integrating AdSense for Search with Google's Custom Search platform, you, as a web publisher have more control over what your search engine searches across. For example, if you're concerned about users leaving your site, you can allow them to search just your site. If your site is dedicated to a particular topic, you can create a vertical search engine so that your users can search across related sites of your choosing. From individual pages to the entire Web, it's completely up to you to decide what your users will be searching across.

Provide the Most Relevant Ads to Your Readers

Provide keywords related to your site's content, to help fine-tune ads and search results so that they're even more relevant to your users.

Seamless Integration with Your Site Design

Here are some of the look and feel customization features you get with AdSense for search:

Customize the color scheme of your ads and search results

Choose where you want to place your ads

Opt to host the search results on your own site within your site's template

Select from a variety of search box appearances

Getting Started

Get started with these new Google Search features by taking these specific steps:

1) Go to your Google AdSense account

2) Click on your Setup tab

3) Select 'AdSense for Search' as your product

4) Once you've set up your search box, you may wish to explore more advanced features such as site exclusion, labels, and collaboration.

To learn more, visit google.com/adsense/afs or the AdSense Help Center.

Google Custom Search - Business Edition

The Google Custom Search Business Edition is great for public websites that have a lot of web-based content that needs to be easily searchable and to companies wanting to leverage the maximum potential for content monetization available through the Google Custom Search Engine.

The Business Edition, allows you to:

a) Turn off ads.
Custom Search Business Edition turns off Google Adwords advertisements in search results that regularly appear in the free version of the Custom Search Engine.

b) Customize your search results through an XML feed
If you wish to significantly change the look and feel of your search engine, you can build your own user interface and integrate an XML feed of search results.

c) Put your own logo on the search results pages

d) Access enterprise-grade support

Here, a simple video demonstration of the Custom Search Business Edition: