Google's custom search service extends Adsense income opportunities
Howard Lake | 25 October 2006 | News
Search engine Google has launched a new service allowing website owners to create a custom search engine for their site, featuring results from their own and other sites that they may choose to select. The new tool is fully integrated with Google AdSense, meaning that website owners creating such a search tool can generate income from the Google adverts that are displayed next to the search results.
The Google Custom Search Engine service allows website owners to create a customised Google-powered search engine on their website in just a few minutes. Website owners can choose which sites are searched – a key issue for some charities, wary of incorporating search results from unreliable or undesirable sites related to their work.
So, UK Fundraising’s search tool could include this site and that of BBC News, but we could choose to exclude results from, for example, another charity sector trade magazine’s website. Not that we would of course…
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Google will allow website owners to customise the look and layout of the search results. Site owners can let Google host the results on its own site, or they can choose to display them on their own website.
Most importantly for some charities, the tool can be linked to a Google AdSense account, allowing the charity to display and earn income from Google’s AdWords adverts.
The tool includes a range of useful facilities, not least the ability to allow volunteers to help refine the quality and range of the search results. Some charities might find themselves receiving offers to help them build an even more effective search tool.
In addition, a website owner can help searchers find relevant material by selecting topics or keywords that appear at the top of search results.
This type of tool isn’t new in search engine terms, but it could prove a useful addition to charities keen to generate income from searches of its own site.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.