New Google Search for Smaller Websites

This recent article in eweek.com talks about Google's new Custom Search Business Edition of their search engine, geared towards small- and medium-sized organizations. Many websites use the free version of Google Seach, which includes advertisements that can be a distraction. This new service offers indexing and customized searching options, plus customer support for prices starting at $100 a year.

Potentially this could be a valuable service to organizations. While it would involve extra cost for the service, it seems like it might well be worth the cost to have an ad-free way for users to more readily access information on an organization's website (and potentially costs for IT support).

Do any of you rely on Google Search for your organization's webpage? What do you think about this new service offering?

--Megan

I think there are other options that can work as well or better if the NP has the staff to setup and maintain a site search option. There are a number of free programs that don't have ads, like the Zoom search engine free version. I think the paid version is a one-time fee of $50 or $100.

But the other option I would suggest for NPs is using Google's site search with ads, but that they sign up for their AdSense program. This way if people search and find the site does not have what they want, they may click on ads that DO offer what they want which can help support the NP.

I've written an article about how nonprofits can use Google Co-Op to create a custom search engine.

Make your own search engine with Google Co-Op

And created this ESL search engine using Co-Op: ESL Search


Jason King