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How to Setup a Google Search on Your Site
Let me tell you why it is necessary to setup a Google search on your website.
The other day I was
searching through the past issues of the Boomer eZine for all the times I had
referenced Site Build It. As I
searched, it occurred to me that the number of past issues of the newsletter had
grown large enough that I could no longer instantly remember when I wrote about
a given topic. I found this a nice
problem to have, but one that needed a solution. I remembered that Google
offered the ability to download a Google search box to your website to search
the content of the site and present it in the same format as the Google search
engine results page. I decided that
this was what was needed on Boomer eZine. From my research on Google, I found there were two options to setup a Google search. If you go to Google Free
at http://www.google.com/services/free.html
you can register to get the HTML code that will put the Google search on your
site. This requires that you fill
in information that is requested and the site will be customized for you.
You can then preview the results, and if it is what you want, you copy
the HTML code that Google gives to you and paste it into your web page where you
want the search box to appear. It
is fairly easy to do. This will put the Boomer
logo on the search engine results pages. Click
the following link to see the Boomer eZine example http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Boomer_eZine_Search.htm.
Once the search page loads, enter SBI in the search box and search.
The results will be all of the times SBI appears on the Boomer eZine
site. Notice the Boomer logo on the
customized search engine results page. I personally like the
look of the results page, but notice the Google Adwords ads on the right.
Since I am an affiliate of SBI, and I am selling Site Build It, I do not
want competitor’s ads showing up on my website searches.
With this type of search, you do not have any control over what appears
in the Google Adwords ads on the search engine results pages. The other option is to
use Google Adsense for Search. Since
I am already a member of Adsense, I logged on my account and selected Adsense
for Search. This will create a
customized Google search for your website, and this option has filters that you
can set to exclude certain websites from being included in the Adsense ads on
your site. The other benefit is if
someone clicks on an Adsense ad, and purchases an item, you get a fee for the
transaction. If you want to sign up
for Google Adsense, click the following link.
(For those of you reading this in text format or on the blog, I cannot
put the link here since it is a script. To
access the link, please go to the Boomer eZine site and follow it from there.
Thanks.) When you log on the
Google Adsense site, you can choose to use Google Web search or Google Web
search + Site Search. Since I want
to search the Boomer eZine site, I chose the Google Web search + Site Search. On the page that sets
the options for the search function, enter the URL for your site and other set
up information. You will be given
the chance to review what it will look like and you can come back and change
parameters if you do not like it. At the bottom of the
page, there are three options for how the search results are displayed. ·
Open
results on Google in the same window ·
Open
results on Google in a new window ·
Open
results within my own site I chose the last option.
This will place the search results on a page with the Boomer eZine header
and footer. It holds the reader on
your site. Option one keeps them on
your site, but they do not get that impression since all they see is a Google
page. Option two opens a new window
and sends them to Google. You might
lose them at that point. Option three requires
that you specify a web page for the search results, but that is easy if you have
a template page built for your site. At
first, I built a page for the search input box and a separate page for the
results and loaded them on the site. This
took about ten minutes with Front Page. After
I experimented with the search live on the website, I decided that I would put
the search results on the same page as the search box.
This is very similar to the way Google designed its search page. On the next Adsense page
you specify the color scheme for your ads, the country for the search, if you
want to use Safe Search (keeps porn from coming up on the web search), and if
you want to use a tracking channel. I
recommend that you use channels for each different use of Adsense so you can see
where your revenue is coming from. On the next Adsense
page, you will get two sets of HTML code. One
set goes on the page where you want the search box and the other goes on the
page where the search results will be placed.
Copy the HTML from the box and paste it into the proper location on the
web page. I found that when I first
viewed the results, they were left justified so I used the HTML center tags to
center the search box and the frame on the page.
(<XMP> Center tags are <center> and the closing center tag is
</center> </XMP. Remember
that the XMP tags tell the browser to ignore any HTML between the tags and treat
it as text.) The code for the search
box begins and ends with the comment <!-- SiteSearch Google -->.
After you have pasted the code into your page, insert the center tags
just before and just after the beginning and ending comments.
The code for the search
results location begins and ends with <!-- Google Search Result Snippet
Begins --> and ends with <!-- Google Search Result Snippet Ends -->.
Put the center tags before and after these comments. Upload your page to your
site and it will work for you. For
the final results on the Boomer eZine site, go to the home page http://www.boomer-ezine.com
and click Search on the navigation bar on the left.
This will take you to the search page.
Enter SBI as the search term and click the search button.
The results will be displayed under the search box along with the Adsense
ads at the top and bottom of the search results. This is a handy tool to
use. It does not cost anything and
you can make money with it if someone clicks on an Adsense ad on the search
results page. A real win, win deal! I recommend that you setup a Google search on your site.
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