Google coop is a customized search engine service. This allows you to build a social-search engine for your blog. Google coop provides you a control panel where you can start creating your own search engine and later collaborate with users to enhance it i.e. Socialize it.
1. Add the sites you want
Login into Google Coop and start with adding a new site. You will be asked to input few details like the name of the site, the URL and keywords to describe the search like ‘blogging’ , Google etc. This means, people who visit your blog will be able to search for these keywords frequently. So, instruct Google about this, so that Google will tune up your search results. Then you will be asked on what is the scope of your search.
Google offers 3 scopes –
- Show search results from your blog
- Entire Web, but show the sites which you prefer
- Entire Web
Next comes the place to provide the list of sites, blogs, pages that you want to search. Google Coop also gives you a facility to narrow the scope of search to a page level. E.g. http://yourblog.com/singlepage.html. Lets assume that you have multiple blogs like SkellieWag and Problogger – if Google should search all your blogs, you should provide all the blogs in the textbox. Probably if SkellieWag hasn’t looked into Google Coop, she could combine both SkellieWag & AnyWired. If Darren has to use it, he might combine both Problogger , Digital Photography & b5Media.
Then select which kind of edition you need
- Standard Editor – Free and gives you an option to monetize on your search results.
- Business Edition – This costs you $100, but don’t choose this if you want to monetize your search results
Now your basic setup is done. You will have the search box ready for all the sites you have included. Try out a test search.
2. Add Search Refinements
Now you are done with creation of the Custom Search Engine. And it’s time to tune up your search results. Go to control panel and click Refinements. Refinements are predefined searches, that are showed as labels. When you click on it, you would be getting the appropriate search results. Something like site links you can provide. You can create sections like Tips Tricks, Search Engine Optimization etc. When the user clicks on the Search Engine Optimization link, a search will be done on the clicked link predefined search terms. You can make use of the advanced search terms offered by Google in this.
E.g: SEO, Search Engine Optimization, ~SEO etc.
3. Update Look and Feel
It’s time to dress up your search box and search results. Click on ‘Look and Feel’ and get the way you want to your search engine look. Setup all the links in the colours you want and upload a photo for your search engine result page to show when someone searches. This would be a simple task for you to do, but is an important thing which decides on how your search box should look on your page and attract people to search your blog.
4. Monetize
This is another important part of building the new custom search engine. Most of you would be thinking why need another search engine, when Google Adsense gives you one with revenue. So, Google Coop also doesn’t loose it’s pie in the monetization stuff. Because Google very well knows that people will never get back to Google Coop if they don’t provide a way to monetize the search results.
Enter the required details in the form and start monetizing the searches.
5. Collaborate
Here comes the place where you involve others to fine tune your search engine to show up better results. You can think that Google already shows up good results. But if that is the case, then Google wouldn’t have introduced the concept of Collaboration. Even Google knows that Socialization is more powerful than Google.
The contributors in your list will help you to optimize the search engine! So, I feel that you would be comfortable now to develop your own search engine and socialize it. Happy Searching!!!
A screenshot of Google Coop in My Mind Leaks
You can read more articles by our guest blogger S.Maheshwaran (better known as maheshexp) at My Mind Leaks, which makes you value, live and feel Technology and Blogging which impacts society, culture and life of people. If you write great content, you too can guest blog on QOT.