Hi all,
An afterthought on the Google Custom Search post of a few days ago. If you would like to add a Food Blog Search bar to your site, and don't want to spend the time (in my case several hours) inputing hundreds of blogs in to a new search engine, you are very welcome to use mine on your site. The code is:
<!-- Google CSE Search Box Begins -->
<form id="searchbox_003084314295129404805:72ozi9a0fjk" action="http://www.google.com/cse">
<input type="hidden" name="cx" value="003084314295129404805:72ozi9a0fjk" />
<input name="q" type="text" size="20" />
<input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" />
<input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:1" />
</form>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=searchbox_003084314295129404805%3A72ozi9a0fjk"></script>
<!-- Google CSE Search Box Ends -->
Note that Google will run ads on most search results. At the moment the ads for this particular Food Blog Search engine are tied to my Google Adsense account. If there was a way to set it up so that the adsense could be tied to other accounts as well, I would do that. But that's not possible at the moment. The Custom Search function is in beta, so maybe this will be something that they will change in time.
Enjoy. Please email any questions regarding this to recipes AT elise [dot} com.
This Post was written by Elise from Simply Recipes
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10 comments:
Implemented and it looks very good. Many thanks.
Elise you area god-like creature! Thanks for sharing.
You can also easily add all the blogs in your personal rss feed reader to your own search if you like, using the opml file.
to export the opml (which is an .xml file) from your rss reader follow the instructions in your reader. I use google's reader which doesnt really have any instructions so I did this: in the reader go to: settings -> import/export -> Export your subscriptions as an OPML file.
Hitting the link opened the file in a new window and it looked like there was an error. "
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below." so I just right clicked in the main part of the page and 'saved the page as' and it saved that as an xml file.
Then in the Co-op google custom search I set up my new search, listing only one blog at set-up. Then once it was set up I edited it, went to the -> advanced section and uploaded the previously saved opml .xml file in the section where it says Annotation file. It only took me a minute and needs no several hours typing them in by hand (sorry to break this news to you Elise) and thanks so much to the person who suggested it in the previous post.
I have over 800 food blogs in my search which can be found here. I haven't added it to my blog roll yet but will at some point.
ps - you can also turn the ads off if you like: Under "basics" select:
"Do not show ads on results pages (for non-profits, universities, and government agencies only)."
Great advice, Sam, thanks! Unfortunately, the OPML wouldn't have helped me. I don't use a feed reader that often to read blogs, and most of my favorites are listed, hand coded, into a page on my site. So for me it really was a manual process. But for those of you who do keep track of other blogs via Bloglines or another feedreader, it's great to know that you can easily import this data into your own custom search.
Umm... but you aren't a non-profit or university site.
ditto the opml file advice. It took me mere seconds to export my urls.
Also- there is the "google marker" toolbar button for adding urls onto your own search list on the fly.
I used this all to get mine up on my site no problem.
However, notes from use over the last couple days...
- though its a Google project, your new search engine's IQ isn't going to be all that much smarter than your existing non-google search feature.
-For example, because this search isn't blog savy, it is returning results for whole pages and categories, rather than searching "posts" for content. Therefore a search for a word will return pages in which the google bot last captured that word existing on your site.
- this results in non-relevant returns when your dynamic content (sidebars listing last posts, etc) as snapped by the google bot with a post contains the word being searched for.
well - strictly speaking I guess i really am non-profit.
I don't make money from my blog.
I clicked the button and it seemed to work.
But I admit I misread it - I thought it would only put adverts for non-profits on the search, but now I see I was looking at it from a different lateral plane, sucjh is my skewed brain.
duh!
I think what we really need is a Google Custom Blog search - that searches the posts, not the sidebars, and gives results by date, not by rank, and just for the blogs that we want to search. Ah well. I give it a "somewhat useful", especially if I'm willing to jump ahead pages, dig deeper into the results.
I do like the fact that I can put the search bar right above my list of blogs on my site. And it beats doing just a plain Google search. But hopefully Google will get feedback like this from many and will come up with a custom blog search tool as well.
yes- that would be splendid!
Hrmm... do they have a way to submit feedback?
Yes, sort of. They have a discussion group forum where people post questions and feedback here:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-co-op
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