I was thrilled to see the updated version of Google’s Custom Search Business Edition. Rebranded Google’s Site Search, it offers a lot of new features that I was only last week wishing were available – and now they will be!
The product enhancements Google is unveiling along with the rebranding announcement include several that are quite timely.
Synonyms that are familiar to us, but might not be to search engines can now be added to search criteria, such as acronyms, initials and other common usages. GE = General Electric, GM = General Motors…you get the idea. If you commonly use a nickname for your site, this can really help you out.
Improved indexing is allowing publishers to add site pages to the search that previously had been crawled by spiders but subsequently left out of the index. This is another helpful tool.
The third asset to Google’s Site Search s the ability to place a priority on a certain aspect of the site, letting you request the product pages to show before the forums pages or vice versa. If you are in a hurry, this can be a huge timesaver.
Finally, my favorite – you know how annoying it is that search engines don’t seem to realize when an old result won’t really help us? Now we can implement the new date bias aspect in our search, giving priority to more recent content. The directive allows three setting, High, Medium and Low, to allow you to better balance your results.
These tools will allow publishers a much easier way to manage their site search needs, and promise to be a welcome addition to the Google family of applications.
Tags: indexing, Site Search