Programmable Search Engine Blog
The latest news, updates and tips from the Programmable Search Engine team
Star Power
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Posted by: Jay Davies, Community Manager
If you've created a Custom Search Engine you've likely encountered the term 'URL patterns': the method for specifying sites and pages to include in a search engine. You can create a Custom Search Engine without ever giving URL patterns much thought, but there's added control that comes with understanding how they work and how best to use them. To that end, here are a few tips on creating useful URL patterns.
The simplest type of pattern is the URL of a specific page. You can use an asterisk (or star, in techie vernacular) as a wild card in your pattern to specify a swath of URLs by identifying their common characters. Here's how it works: rather than add each page of www.site.com to your search engine, you can merely add www.site.com/* and we will include every URL that begins with www.site.com. Similarly, rather than individually adding each subdomain of site.com, you can use the star to include them all: *.site.com will apply to www.site.com, server.site.com, etc.
Because most users adding sites to their search engines expect the subpages to be included, we've made the addition of the star the default behavior. This is what we mean in the Sites tab of the control panel when we say 'Include all pages whose address contains this URL.' If you leave that option selected, we will add a star to the end of whatever URL you provide. Additionally, if your URL is just a domain (like site.com/), not including a sub-domain (like www.site.com/ or server.site.com/), we will add a star at the beginning. This means:
site.com/ becomes *.site.com/*
server.foo.com/ becomes server.foo.com/*
othersite.co.uk/ becomes *.othersite.co.uk/* (yep, we handle two level top-level domains correctly)
If you'd like to control exactly where stars get added, you can select 'Include just the specific page or URL pattern I have entered.'
Another way to use patterns is to identify and distill common characters among a set of pages you'd like to include in your index. For example, if I know that all car review pages on my favorite consumer reviews site contain the words 'car' and 'reviews' in the URL, I can create the pattern www.reviewsite.com/*reviews*cars and include these pages. (I just need to be careful that only the pages I want contain these terms, or I may include more than I bargained for.) These types of patterns are especially useful when creating search
refinements
.
There is also one more application of the star, which is before a top-level domain like .edu or .ca. One use of this pattern is for when you'd like to refine a search by country: for example, you can create a pattern like *.ca and refine your search to Canadian web sites only. That said, you cannot otherwise insert a star into the second-level domain, such as www.*.com or www.dogs*.com. For a few more concrete examples of URL patterns check out our
documentation
.
The careful creation of URL patterns allows you greater control over the content of your Custom Search Engines, and can be particularly helpful when breaking up a site's content for refinements. Patterns may also help reduce the overall number of sites in your Custom Search Engine account, so look for redundant URLs that can be included more economically by the use of, shall we say, a little star power.
Bigger and Better Group
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Posted by: Christine Moschella, Online Operations
Good news, Custom Search Engine fans! We've redesigned the
discussion group
just for you; in particular, we've added categories to make information easier to find, including several sections dedicated to CSE features and options.
We invite you to join the Google Custom Search Help Group at
http://groups.google.com/group/google-custom-search
to ask questions, find answers, and lend your expertise to other Google Custom Search Engine users. Our own Custom Search Guides will also be posting to this group from time to time to help facilitate the discussion with tips and clarifications.
As for the original Co-op group, we've moved it into a subcategory of the new Custom Search group and archived the posts. You can still search for topics and read posts, but you won't be able to post new messages to the group. We hope you'll find the right category for your questions in the new Custom Search group.
Before posting to the group, try searching for the answer to your question in the
FAQ
or in the group
archives
. Also, please review the
Custom Search Help Charter
for more details about the group, including posting tips and etiquette. We hope to have you as an active group member soon!
Show popular queries on your site
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Posted by: Matt Wytock, Software Engineer
We've just added the ability to show popular queries for your
Custom Search Engine
, so that your users can see what others have been searching for on your site. Popular queries are updated daily, and the code snippet dynamically shows the most recent data.
To show your CSE's popular queries, go to the "My search engines" page (after you've signed in) and click on the "statistics" link. Cut and paste the popular queries code where you would like them to appear on your website. You can also subscribe to the feed for your CSE popular queries using your favorite feed reader -- the link to the feed is also available on the statistics page.
Better branding part II
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Posted by: Jennifer Hyman, Product Marketing Manager
In tandem with the
search results branding changes
, we've just updated and implemented new search box branding for CSEs as well. You can now select from 7 different search box branding options to fit the look and feel of your site. You'll find
these different branding options on the Code page in your Custom Search Engine Control Panel. If you were previously using the watermark branding option that sits within the search box, we have automatically updated this logo to match the new updated branding.
We're always working to improve and enhance CSEs look, feel and functionality, and hope you agree that this new branding is a step in the right direction. To learn more about CSE branding, visit our
branding guidelines
. And as always, please keep the
feedback
coming.
Better branding part I
Monday, February 26, 2007
Posted by:
Jennifer Hyman, Product Marketing Manager
In our constant quest to simplify things, we've made a small, but important change to the language you see from Google on
Custom Search Engine search results pages
.
Now, instead of the long string of text that previously said "Google search results customized by [XYZ site] using Google Co-op," you'll see a small Google logo with the words Custom Search. We think this new branding is an improvement both in design and clarity -- not only do the search results look better, but it should be clearer to your users that they're benefiting from Google CSE.
Later this week, we plan to roll out some additional branding options for your search boxes, and hope you like our first attempt to improve the look and feel and of your CSE.
Site search gets supplemental
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Posted by: Patrick Riley, Software Engineer
One of the common uses of Custom Search Engines is to provide site search. A number of users have suggested that we can improve Custom Search for this application by also including
supplemental results
in Custom Search Engine's results. We put fewer constraints on what pages go into our supplemental index and therefore there are many pages which are available only there. This is our first step to give you more results. If your search engine operates as a filter and has three sites or less or your search engine includes the whole web, you'll get
supplemental results
as well. For example, take a look at the
Hanayama Puzzle Store
search engine I've created. Hanayama makes some great puzzles, but they aren't always so easy to find. The queries "
hanayama baroq
" (possibly my favorite puzzle of all time) and "
hanayama laby
" only return supplemental results in this search engine. Check out the
FAQ entry about supplemental results
for more information.
Here's some love for our Custom Search friends
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Posted by: Mike Cancel, Community Manager
Since it launched in October, we've been pleasantly surprised by the nice ecosystem that has built up around Custom Search Engines. Here are some of the more interesting resources we've found outside Google that you might find useful. Happy V-Day from us to you!
Tools
Add CSE to browser (firefox and IE)
Importing del.icio.us bookmarks for CSE (aka Vik's tool)
Lijit: Personal Network Search
Lists
Finding Google Custom Search Engines
List Your Custom Search Indexes
Directories
CSE Links Directory
CustomSearchEngine.com - the directory of Google Custom Search Engines
Guide to Custom Search Engines
Workarounds
Using ASP.NET site with CSE
Google Custom Search Results Page on Your Wordpress with Adsense Deluxe
How to save search queries on Google Custom Search Engine
Google Co-op - An Intro & Some Insider Hacks
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