Building The Small Business Marketing Search Engine

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Google has a fairly new offering called Google Co-op. This tool allows anyone to create a custom search engine integrating their own site results along with hand chosen results that fit into a narrow focus.

So, I’ve decided to build The Small Business Marketing Search Engine.( Use the search box at the top of the page to see how it works.)

But, what about a BBQ search engine, a Web 2.0 search engine, an industry or obscure topic search engine. This could be a great tool for some information aggregating entrepreneur. Hand crafted results that combined blogs, web sites, personal finds and news could actually outperform just about any algorithmic search for specific information.

The interface and toolset Google put together makes this work as a single site search or as a full blown collaboration. You can invite others to contribute sites and pages to your search engine or even open your search engine up for public contribution. When someone does a search using your specially formulated search box, the results are drawn only from the sites you or your volunteers suggest. Be careful with this feature as once you open your search engine up to others for contribution, the sites they index are added immediately.

I was a little surprised with how much Google allows you to brand your search results – using the full customization tool set allows you to build the search box and the search results right into your site templates with only a hint of Google branding. Google AdWords ads appear in the search results much as they might on a Google search page. (Current AdWords participants can generate revenue from this.)

Another widget that makes this a nice tool is something they call the Google Marker. I simply place a bookmark in Firefox or IE and as I surf and find a site I want to add I click on the marker and presto, another site in the search.

Visit www.ducttapemarketing.com and use the search box on the homepage. Once you hit search your results are tabulated and displayed on the page I designated for search results.

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Posted by: John Jantsch on Nov 03, 06 | 7:07 pm
Category: Search Engines | Tags:

Comments

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Jake

So isn't Co-Op basically Eurekster.com?

Paul Codman

A nice explanation of the usefulness of CSEs. If you are interested in publicising your CSE you may want to be an early bird submitter at our CSE links directory at www.cselinks.com - your submission will include as long a description of your CSE as you wish together with relevant keyword lists, both of which you will be entitled to edit and keep up to date when you register as an Editor. You can also add new CSEs should you build them. All Editors will also have permission to rate and comment on other CSEs thereby constantly improving the overall quality of our visitors' experience.

John Jantsch

Jake,

Lots of similarities to Eurekster's tool, but, and this is a big one, it's Google. In addition, the ability to display the results and drive some AdWords revenue seems to make Co-op more appealing in my mind.

Jake

Yeah, that seems to be the killer for most of Google's opportunity, isn't it? The ability to effectively and quickly monetize your other normal activities is a big deal and, perhaps unfortunately, can win out over better, earlier services.

Xuru

Wow, that's a great implementation. Yours is the first I have seen that actually molded it to their own website.

Marketing NirvÄna -- by Mario

<trackback>5 Interesting Marketing Blog Posts
1. Belated Birthday greetings:
Pic Source: David Armano
Before I start off this week, “Belated Birthday Wishes” to my good friend and fellow blogger Ann, who runs the coolest band of marketing maniacs over at the Daily Fix. Ann has done a t...</trackback>

5 Interesting Marketing Blog P

<pingback>...has created the nifty Google Custom Search for Small Businesses. Read all about it here and you can check out the Small Business Google Search tool here. Have a great week ahead! – Coming Up: Tomorrow’s post: Why ...</pingback>

Caydel

Thanks for the interesting post. I think I will be spending on some time in the next little bit playing with the CSE on Co-op...

Agnes

They have even added some updates there, like Custom Search Blog, Custom Search Engines and they even promise a better documentation for writing XML directly.

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