Back in December I swapped from using the regular WordPress search to using Google Custom Search. The change was very easy to make and Diogo Iglésias wrote up an easy tutorial for it here.
The reason for the change was simple; Google is a great search engine. I realized that every time I wanted to search my own site, I was going to Google and typing in “site:problogdesign.com” and then searching there. If I don’t want to use my own site search, who does?
The Test – Number of Searches
If one type of search encourages more people to search, then it’s doing a better job.
Google automatically tracks stats on your search engines (Go to google.com/cse > Manage Existing Search Engines > Statistics). To track WordPress’ search, I used the excelled Search Meter plugin from Bennett McElwee.
One thing to note first is that the search box on this design is very unobtrusive and hard to spot (Purposefully, I have other content that’s more important), so the number of searches is very low. It makes the results less reliable statistically, but as you’ll see, there’s a clear trend regardless.
WordPress Search:
- August – 102
- September – 92
- October – 82
- November – 109
Google Custom Search:
- January – 131
- February – 140
- March – 136
- April – 142
- May – 131
The average number of searches for WordPress was 96, and for Google 136. That is 40 extra searches per month just because people saw the Google logo. It doesn’t sound like much there, but on these small numbers, that’s a 42% increase over the WordPress average.
Reasons To Stick With WordPress
You would need to do a lot more testing with more sites and more users, but even so, the numbers above are quite damning for WordPress. For that reason I’m going to list a few of the reasons to stick with WordPress search:
- No adverts – Google plaster your results page in adverts. Have a look at it on my site, it’s over the top.
- Control over the layout – By creating a search.php file in your theme, you can lay out your results in any way you like. You can create a bullet list of results, show thumbnails, give excerpts, or anything else you like.
- Special Effects – Things like highlighting the search terms, pagination, dynamic search text and any other trick you can think of are possible on WordPress because you really do have complete control.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would love to take advantage of the design of my search page with all the power of WordPress. However, the quality of the results comes first and foremost and for the minute at least, WordPress search just doesn’t cut it.
Someday that will change though, and when it does, I’ll swap right back.
What about you? Have you considered leaving WordPress search for a different system?
Custom Search
Adelaide (2 comments)5 June 09
It might be worth trying Yahoo’s BOSS, which is a bit (perhaps much more) complicated to implement but it doesn’t show adverts. You can get a lot more control over the output (with PHP) and add in cool Search Monkey widgets tailored to your site.
I’ve only just begun to explore the possibilities with BOSS (and still have a Google CSE on my site) but I think I’ll be switching fairly soon.
Adelaide’s Latest Post: How to Make A Recipe Search With Yahoo BOSS And PHP
chrome story (1 comments)5 June 09
But, what about people who wants to monetize search ? hmm editing search.php and adding adsense code will do ?
chrome story’s Latest Post: Google Chrome Official Release ( Dev ) for Mac and Linux !!
adis (9 comments)5 June 09
I think i still comfortable with wordpress search. It is more “wordpress” if you know what i mean…
adis’s Latest Post: Security For Your Mail
Rarst (11 comments)5 June 09
I switched to Google CSE. WordPress search is sure more integrated but it… sucks at searching.
By the way ads in Google search cannot be removed (at least for free) but can be limited to showing in the right block, makes them much less obtrusive.
Rarst’s Latest Post: Easily find duplicate image files with VisiPics
Michael S. Hyatt (1 comments)5 June 09
For $100 per year, you can remove the ads. If you have a commercial site, as I do, it is well worth it. I have also found the Google search results FAR superior to WordPress. I used to get complaints all the time because people couldn’t find what they are looking for. Since adding Google search, that has completely disappeared.
Mike @ ObliviousInvestor (1 comments)5 June 09
Great timing: I’ve been pondering this exact switch for the last week or so. My line of thinking has been much the same as yours–when I want to search my site, I’m doing a “site:” query. That’s a pretty good indicator that WP search just doesn’t cut it.
Mike @ ObliviousInvestor’s Latest Post: Why bother diversifying?
Luis Lopez (10 comments)5 June 09
I haven’t tought that Google custom search, could bring maybe more visits or clicks to my site, but from now I think I’ll start to using it, and gonna make my test.
Luis Lopez’s Latest Post: 15 Sites To Find A Free Twitter Background
John (Human3rror) (9 comments)5 June 09
i second michael hyatt’s comment. i use it. it’s awesome.
John (Human3rror)’s Latest Post: A Preview of Things to Come…
Tyler (2 comments)5 June 09
My normal search is wordpress, but on my results page I added a link to forward the search to my google custom search page. My WP search is highly customized to search specific custom fields. I had 2,167 total searches last month and only 229 of them were google searches. My biggest concern for switching to google search would be to minimize server resources by using a third party search engine but with only 1,300 posts my WP search is still fast and has nice highlighting and result ordering features!!!
Ian Soper (1 comments)5 June 09
I’m too picky about layout. I’ve used the plugin WPSearch which uses Lucene for search, it does a much better job than the default WordPress search.
However, it seems to need help to reindex posts on a large site I’ve used it on, and it hasn’t been updated for a while)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpsearch/
David Airey (55 comments)5 June 09
I’ve been using Google’s search engine on both my blogs for over a year now. It’s much more accurate than what I remember the WP search to be, so I don’t see me changing anytime soon.
David Airey’s Latest Post: How Twitter helps designers
Online Printing (9 comments)6 June 09
I see Wordpress as more of a hosting site. Google ALMOST has everything (though I don’t know if it can host a site). Google search is better. Wordpress has a different use.
Nishadha (3 comments)6 June 09
As you have mentioned Google search does provide better results. You do make a income if the visitors click on the ads of the search results. Also people associate Google with search , so having the Google logo boosts your chance of people searching your blog.
Nishadha’s Latest Post: BloggerLinkUp – Connecting bloggers
Adrian - WPDONE (3 comments)6 June 09
Wordpress search is my choice, I think more professional.
Adrian – WPDONE’s Latest Post: SimplePerfect – A Free Premium Wordpress Theme by wpdone
Wallace (5 comments)7 June 09
why not choose Google custom search, it’s fast and accuracy.
Wallace’s Latest Post: Protect Your Email Online From Spam With Scr.im
David Bradley (16 comments)8 June 09
Google custom search lets you create a special page, which you can theme to embed their results within your website. A couple of sponsored links at the top of the results is a small price for your visitors to pay if it means you’re providing stronger results for them at the same time.
Web Design Beach (31 comments)8 June 09
Hmm, i would use Google’s Adsense for search, which also can work like a search engine for your blog, but in same time you earn money if some clicks on related sponsored ads. It also can be customized to appeal with your site.
Anyhow, you should really give some focus on search input field, because i had to look twice over whole page layout to find it, it is almost perfectly blended. That would surely increase your search count..
Hansel Dobbs (1 comments)9 June 09
Actually, there is a really cool search tool called Lijit (http://www.lijit.com/) that allows users to not only search your blog, but allows searches through any and all content that you have produced including twitter. It’s worth checking out and it’s very clean/unobtrusive.
Hansel Dobbs’s Latest Post: Amber + Stafford Hunter | Wedding
Caine rain (1 comments)10 June 09
You post is very helpful to me and I
Sumesh (39 comments)10 June 09
I’d used CSE for a while, and my site makes most of its money from AdSense. However, I removed it soon – for the reason that it looks cluttered and poorly designed. I’ve tried a lot of different searches, and WP’s default search seems pretty accurate – perhaps because it is a tech blog with post titles that clearly describe content.
Your result may vary, but for me, WP search is more integrated and looks the part. That alone is worth for me
There may be some plugins that enhance the default search, I’m personally looking forward to some attention for it from the WP devs (who seem engrossed in enhancing only theme/plugin/other flashy stuff).
Sumesh’s Latest Post: How to find MAC address (Windows Vista)
Zemalf (3 comments)11 June 09
I combined the Google Custom Search with the regular WP search on my blog: I took the custom search from google and added the search form code into the theme and edited it to fit straight into the theme (so it actually doesn’t look like google search at the moment)
+ added javascript onclick on the form to pass the search term(s) to both google and wordpress search and then display it on the same search.php page on my blog. So it now displays the google results on top and then WP search results below, but that is modifiable on the search.php.
[rq=2304,0,blog][/rq]WordPress Settings for Every Blog
David Bradley (16 comments)11 June 09
Zemalf, I’d check Google’s T&Cs on that, especially if you’re using Adsense for Search…
Zemalf (3 comments)16 June 09
@David Bradley: Thanks for confirming what I started to wonder myself. As far as I understand, it is forbidden to hide the fact that the search is google custom search. I wish they made those T&Cs plain-english, so I wouldn’t have to do guesswork if it’s cool to add the normal search results under the google results on the search results page. Well anyway, I reworked my own search and my article about it, now clearly showing it’s Google Search.
.-= Zemalf´s last blog ..How To Add Google Custom Search to Your Blog =-.
David Bradley (16 comments)16 June 09
@Zemalf
http://www.google.com/coop/doc.....s/tos.html
“You shall implement Custom Search in a manner that: (a) conforms to the Custom Search Specifications provided by Google to You”
and
http://www.google.com/cse/docs/branding.html
“Google must be given attribution using the appropriate text or brand elements when Google results are shown.”
Fairly plain, certainly isn’t legalese
gjperera (1 comments)1 July 09
Thanks for providing some insight to WP search vs. Google search, I feel better about my choice to switch to the latter. Not only do you get better search results, but you can monetize those search results as well. That’s a double whammy for me.
.-= gjperera´s last blog ..Pin Frequently Used Documents and Save Time in Office 2007 =-.
LoveGuru (4 comments)23 July 09
Thanks for the info. I prefer Google search because it allows you to monetize your search results.
.-= LoveGuru´s last blog ..Letting Go of Someone You Love =-.
Alastair Conditioning (6 comments)11 August 09
I’m very suprised that more people used the Google search, I wonder if it would produce the same findings on other blogs? I would still stick with wordpress too, just because of the adverts on the the results page of the Google search results.