Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) and Co-Branded Search Tests

Internet Marketing Resources - Google CSE /w Link Extraction Test

This Page used to be for testing of Site-Flavored Google Search (beta). The Site-Flavored Google Search which was located at www.google.com/services/siteflavored.html died with the new Google Universal Search.

It was sad, because it was a good idea. It was not long after the Universal Search Launch that Google made a change to their "Custom Search Engine (CSE)" service and now also allows to automatically include sites where the site(s) I specify for the CSE link to. That change is actually something that brings the Google Custom Search Engine closer to what the site-flavored search used to be.

The difference is that the Site-Flavored search allowed to specify topics you are interested in and Google would only return results from sites, which it classified as that category.

I used for my test the "flavor" called "Marketing & Advertising". The purpose was to exclude unrelated results that include your keyword phrase, but are not located at industry specific sites. It also helps Google to solve some of their problems with ambiguity of search terms and phrases.

The good thing about the flavored search was the fact that it included resources I did not know yet. The new feature of the custom search engine allows me to include sites where my specified sites link to, which would include some unknown sites, if I would not only use Cumbrowski.com as basis. I know where I link to (I think), so I should not see anything that would surprise me.

Let us play around with that version first and then maybe extend to include also other sites as basis and sites where those sites link to.

Give it a spin and check for yourself..

Co-Branded Google Search Test

I tried to combine it with the Customizable Google Free WebSearch and SiteSearch (Beta) which allows co-branding, but the the Google Script at "www.google.com/search" which is used for the Site-Flavored Search does not understand the Customization parameters and "www.google.com/custom" does not understand the Site-Flavored parameters such as the selected topic. Bummer.

Here is how the Co-Branded Google Search looks like.

News Sources Search

I moved my News Sources and Statistics Search Engine to it's own page, with nicer interface and description etc. Check it out.