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Overview

Google has just announced a new initiative, known as the Custom Search Engine (CSE) program. This program is designed to allow the power of human editing to improve search results. At the same time, Google has also endorsed the notion of distributed search.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) can now customize Google’s results by modifying the rankings of web sites in several different ways:

1. Specify sites whose rankings should be increased, with the ability to set rankings increases to 3 different levels (0.5, 0.75, and 1)
2. Specify sites whose rankings should be decreased, with the ability to set rankings decreases to 3 different levels (-0.5, -0.75, and -1)
3. Excluding sites from search results altogether (effectively “banning” them)
4. Limiting search results to only those sites listed by the SME (and excluding the rest of the web

The CSE program provides a rich array of methods for SMEs to provide customized search engines. The SME can tune results to their heart’s content, until they achieve the results they desire.

The Google interface for creating a CSE is extremely easy. Here is a quick look at it:

Based on this input, Google will provide the CSE creator with Javascript code for incorporation on their web site. Once this is up on the site, you will see a search box that looks quite like any other search box:

And when a user types in a query in this Custom Search Engine, it will also look quite straightforward:

So now that we know that we can define our own search engine, leveraging Google’s search index, it’s time to think about what would make this worthwhile. The key is to define the scope of the search engine in a narrow way.

No one should comtemplate trying to recreate Google on top of Google (so to speak). The key is to define a narrower focus that fits into the expertise set of the SME. In addition, the SME should focus on parts of the Google index that inherently limited.

For example, if a user searches on “Bose”, the search engine does not know if they want information on the company, to buy stereo equipment, or to read reviews about their equipment, let alone which specific product they have in mind. This creates an opportunity to create more narrowly defined search engines that begin with this knowledge.

In this example, you could define a search engine just for providing information on stereo manfacturing companies, another one on stereo equipment retailers, and a third on stereo equipment reviews. If a user was looking for review information, and searched in your search egnien about stereo equipment reviews, they would get very high quality information back.

Another aspect of the program that is very interesting indeed is that Google will be providing search engine publishers a share of the ad revenue (through their AdSense accounts). This provides web site owners with the ability to create a search asset, and monetize it.

While the program is not for everyone, there will be many web sites that can offer a search engine to their users that offers significantly better results in their area of expertise.