Programmable Search Engine Blog
The latest news, updates and tips from the Programmable Search Engine team
Google-hosted Custom Search Engines now use the Element
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Two months ago we
announced
that all Google-hosted Custom Search Engines would be upgraded to use the
Element
. We’re happy to report that that transition is now complete for all Custom Search users. Those that visit the Control Panel will find better tools for customizing the presentation of their CSEs.
Moving to the Element enables us to quickly deliver
new features
that Custom Search users can easily turn on for their sites and we will soon upgrade all iframe results to use embedded Elements.
As always, we look forward to your
feedback
.
Posted by: Liang Ch'ng, Software Engineer
Rich results templates out-of-the-box
Monday, July 18, 2011
We’ve been hard at work making improvements to the
Google Custom Search Element
that will enhance the look and feel of search results when users type into your custom search query box. You’ll see some of the fruits of these labors starting today. We’ve just launched a set of templates that take advantage of
rich snippets
markup to provide customized results layouts for specific structured data. Your markup can enhance the
display
of structured information in addition to enabling the powerful metadata features, such as
Sort by Attribute
and
Restrict to Range
that we released
last year
.
For example, there’s a
Review
template that will show ratings and expand on-demand to display reviews within a result as shown in the screenshot below:
This specific treatment is used when you use
hreview
and
hreview-aggregate
Microformat markup on your pages. Template rendering changes are automatic if you use the Element.
Templates that we now support include:
People
,
Product
,
Recipe
,
Organization
,
Review
and
Review Aggregate
.
Try these out
at our demo search site. Here’s an example of a
Recipe
result, using a custom
theme
.
For more information on markup that you can use for Google.com and Custom Search, please refer to our
documentation
. Don’t forget that we also support
image thumbnails and actions
. Further, if you are marking up your pages, you can verify that we recognize the right attributes by using our
Rich Snippets Preview Tool
.
We are constantly adding support for additional markup
formats
, so stay tuned. We’re continuing to add innovative features to the Element to help you turbo-charge your Custom Search results presentation. As always, we look forward to your
feedback
.
Posted by: Edison Nica, Software Engineer
Improved On-Demand Indexing
Thursday, June 30, 2011
When we launched
On-Demand Indexing
in Custom Search, our goal was to make it possible for you to include your new and changed pages quickly in your website’s search results. Since then, we’ve improved indexing freshness and
doubled
On-Demand indexing quotas. Today, we’re happy to announce further improvements to On-Demand Indexing that make the process simpler and more flexible.
First, we’re providing a new
On-Demand Indexing API
, which will allow you to initiate indexing actions programmatically. Your content management systems can trigger these new APIs when new content is being published, so that changes on your website are reflected automatically in Custom Search results.
Previously, you needed to provide validated
Sitemaps
in
Webmaster Tools
and then select a Sitemap for On-Demand Indexing in the Custom Search control panel. Now, to make this process simpler, you can submit Sitemaps
directly
within the Custom Search control panel. At this time, we will only consider URLs that belong to the same host serving the Sitemap and for sites verified by the owner of the Custom Search engine.
The best improvement: we now allow you to
delete
URLs from inclusion in your search. If a page on your site has been deleted, or has content that is inappropriate and you want to eliminate it from search results right away, you can list the URL in your sitemap and mark it for deletion by using an “
expires
” tag. For more information on this, and the new On-Demand Indexing API, please refer to our
documentation
. Based on the type of search engine you own, you have certain quotas for URL indexing and removal. You should be able to verify your quota usage in the control panel.
We hope that these changes make it easier for you to control the search experience for your users. As always, we look forward to your
feedback
.
Posted by: Rui Jiang, Software Engineer
More Layout Options
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Ever since the launch of Custom Search, users have asked us to provide more flexible options to integrate search into their websites. Today, we’re launching a set of new layout options for your Custom Search experience. If you go to the
Look and feel
tab, you’ll see a set of new layouts that you can choose from, as shown in the screenshot below.
The
Two page
and
Results only
layouts give you more flexibility than the
Two column
layout, which still requires the search box and results to reside on the same web page.
All of the above layouts are powered by the Custom Search
Element
. The new
Google-hosted
layout also embeds the Element on a Google-hosted page. This is because the Element offers greater flexibility and interactivity, font control, better customization using
themes
and style sheets, out-of-box metadata support for
thumbnails and actions
, support for
client-side control
over results presentation, and a superior
mobile
experience for smart phones and tablets.
There are a couple of additional reasons why all the new layouts use the Element (and we’ll continue to deliver new functionality this way too). We want all Custom Search users to be able to easily turn on upcoming new features on for their site visitors. Consolidating to the Element also allows us deliver features faster.
Along with these new layouts, we are also officially phasing out results presentation via the
iframe
. If you host results in an
iframe
today, you will see this option marked deprecated in the
Look and Feel
tab in the control panel. We encourage you to migrate as soon as possible to one of the Element-based layouts. We plan to replace iframe results soon to use embedded Elements. This will happen first with
all existing
Google-hosted results pages, which currently embed
iframes
.
So stay tuned -- there are exciting new features coming to Custom Search. And as always, we welcome your
feedback
.
Posted by: Ying Huang and Liang Ch'ng, Software Engineers
Transferring ownership of your Site Search engine
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Many of you have requested a simpler process for transferring Google Site Search ownership to a different user. For instance, you may have created, developed and customized your website's search experience under your Google account, but want the long-term management of the search engine to be performed by someone else. In the past, you would have been required to manually export the configuration, import it into a new Site Search instance and then cancel the old instance.
Now, you can very easily transfer the ownership of a Site Search engine to a new user by simply specifying a different Google account email address in the
Business Settings
tab in the control panel.
Once you’ve provided the appropriate account information for the new administrator account, the following things happen:
A new Site Search engine is created with the identical configuration as your current Site Search engine.
The new Site Search engine is owned and can be administered by the new account owner.
Any unused query quota is transferred to the new Site Search engine.
The new Site Search engine will show the transfer history in the
Business settings
in the control panel
You can still continue to use the old engine, but ads may be displayed alongside search results and XML access is disabled.
Please note that either you or the new admin will also need to update the Search box code to represent the new Site Search engine ID. You can find this ID in the
Basics
tab in the control panel, marked “Search Engine unique ID”.
We hope this process makes it easier for you to transfer administration capabilities to the appropriate account owners in your organization. For more details, please refer to the articles on
transferring ownership
, and recommended
post-transfer actions
in the
help center
.
As always, we appreciate your feedback in the
user forum
.
Posted by: Yong Zhu, Software engineer
More powerful collaboration
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Until now, CSE has had a simple collaboration feature that lets the owner of a custom search engine invite friends or colleagues to contribute sites, and assign labels to these sites. This was useful in expanding the scope of a search engine, but beyond expanding indexing, it limited what collaborators were able to do.
Starting today, we’re replacing the current collaboration options with more powerful shared administration features. Through
Admin accounts
, a new tab in your control panel, you can now invite collaborators to become shared administrators. Admin accounts have capabilities similar to those of the owner, but they cannot access the
Make Money
(advertising) tab or create additional admin accounts.
In line with these enhancements, we will be removing the
Collaboration
tab in a month. In the mean time, as an owner of a custom search engine, you can easily migrate existing sites from the
Collaboration
tab to your search engine definition and, if you like, upgrade existing collaborators to Admin accounts to give them shared administrator privileges. When we remove the
Collaboration
tab we will automatically migrate all sites but will
not
automatically upgrade all collaborators to admin accounts - so if you do want to keep existing collaborators on your site we recommend you migrate them today, or you can add them back manually later.
We hope you’ll find these shared admin capabilities more powerful.
Let us know
what you think in our discussion forum.
Posted by: Rui Jiang and Abhishek Rajgarhia, Software Engineers.
Google Site Search on the Royal Wedding Website
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Cross posted on the Google Enterprise Blog
St. James’s Palace just launched
www.officialroyalwedding2011.org
, a website celebrating the forthcoming marriage of Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton. The website is the official information hub for anyone interested in the Royal Wedding, and if you browse the website you might notice something familiar: instant, crisp, and relevant search results powered by Google.
Whether you’re looking for more information about the
reception
, or are simply curious about who Miss Middleton appointed as her
Maid of Honour
,
Google Site Search
will quickly direct you to the most relevant results.
We’re thrilled to be assisting St. James’s Palace with their website search engine. Our congratulations to the happy couple!
Posted by: Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager
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