Marketing Pilgrim

Remember all those times search marketers have warned that obsessing over a #1 ranking on Google would some day be obsolete, as everyone would have their own personalized Google results? That day is finally here.

Google has rolled out a free Custom Search Engine that allows you to specify which websites are integrated in the results (similar to Rollyo).

Here’s what you get:

• Specify the sites you want to include in searches.
• Place a search box and search results on your website.
• Customize the look and feel to match your website.
• Invite your community to contribute to the search engine.
• Make money from relevant ads in your search results.

Here are some real-life examples of how you can use it.

Google engineer, Matt Cutts, weighs-in with his personal thoughts…

This new offering lets you easily add hundreds (thousands?) of urls. You can search over ONLY the sites you choose, or (my favorite) you can apply a boost to the sites you choose, with regular websearch as a backfill. That’s really nice, because if your chosen urls talk about a subject, you’ll often get matches from those urls, but if the user types something completely unrelated, you’ll still get web results back. So it’s a true custom search engine, not just an engine restricted to showing matches from some domains.

There’s also the official Google announcement…

“We want to make it easy for anyone to create a search engine about all of their favorite topics, without needing a Ph.D.,” said Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. “Everyone – businesses, organizations, moms, dads, teenagers, and teachers – can harness the power of Google technology to create a personalized search experience that reflects specific knowledge and interests.”

And the Google Blog is where you’ll find a bunch of links to other sites covering the launch.

Now excuse me while I go an tell my dachshund-obsessed wife that she can now have a search engine that won’t make her blush when she searches for “wiener”.

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