Make a Google Custom Search For Your Blog, and Make Money
64Do you know that every time a person searches your blog you could make money?
Follow this tutorial and you’ll be surprised.
Why should you use Google Custom Search?
Because the WordPress search function isn’t the best. WordPress just lists every post with the search terms in it, with no priority given to the most relevant posts. Also, WordPress search doesn’t allow you to make money from it, but Google Search does.
In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create your own Google custom search and make money with it.
Step-by-Step Instructions
1 – Start by creating a page were you want to show the search results. Go to your WordPress menu and select Write > Page.
Give the page a title like “Search Results”. Don’t enter any content now. Deactivate the comments and pings, and publish the page. After that click “View Page” and copy the URL from your browser’s address bar and save it somewhere for later.
2 – Go to the Google Custom Search Engine page and click the button that says “Create a Custom Search Engine”.
Google will ask you to login. If you already have a Google account you will be redirected to the configuration page. If you don’t have a Google account, you will have to create one (It’s free!).
After the login, the “Set up your search engine” page will appear. Here you will have to fill in some details about your search engine:
- Insert the Search Engine Name;
- Insert a Search Engine Description;
- Insert some Search Engine Keywords;
- Choose the Search Engine Language;
- Select “Only Sites I Select”;
- Insert your Website URL (Click on “Tips on formatting URLs” for more information).
- Select the “Standard Edition” option;
- Check the box;
- Click Next.
Click on either of the 2 images below to see screenshots of the completed form.
After you click Next, another page will open. In this page you can try your new custom search engine.
Try it out, then click Finish.
3 – Start by styling your search box. Click on the “Look and Feel” menu and choose one of the available options that Google has to offer. The most interesting is the watermark one, but it requires JavaScript.
I would change the color scheme for the results that are displayed. Choose wisely, and try to use the color scheme of your website.
4 – Now is the time to start making money with your custom search engine. Click on the “Make Money” menu. You have two options.
If you don’t have an AdSense account, choose “I am a new AdSense User” and you will be redirected to a Google page were you can create one. After you have created your account you can follow the next steps.
If you already have a AdSense account click “I already have an AdSense account”.
After that Google will ask you for your email, your Zip or Postal code, the last 5 digits of your telephone number and your preferred locale. Enter all the information and press Submit.
Before you do this, you will have to be signed up to Google AdSense for Search. If you aren’t already, you can do so by signing into your AdSense account and selecting “My Account” and then “Account Access”.
Now you have to allow access from www.google.com/coop to your AdSense account.
Then try clicking Submit in your search engine page and all should be fine. If you haven’t done it right, you will get an error saying: “Your account does not have SearchAds. Make sure you are signed up for AdSense for Search and not just AdSense for Content or Referrals.”
Now click the link “Add Custom Channels” so you can filter the revenue that comes from the Search Engine.
Choose a channel name. I choose “SE_Revenue” (Search Engine Revenue). Click Submit.
5 – Now we have to put the Search box and Search page code in our blog. To do that click in the “Code” menu and select the option iFrame.
The new option Overlay only shows 8 results and doesn’t allow you to make money from AdSense. Only choose this option if you’re not interested in making money form your search engine.
Next insert the URL of the page were you want the search results to appear. Remember that URL that I told you to save in at the beginning of this How-to? Now it’s time to use it. That will be the page were the search results will appear.
Select were you want the ads to be placed.
Now scroll down and there you have the codes that you need to place on your site or blog.
Copy the first code and paste it were you want your search box to appear (usually the Sidebar).
Then copy the second code and in your WordPress control panel go to “Manage”, then “Pages”, select the page you created, choose HTML View, paste the code and press “Save”.
All done! Now test your custom search engine.
Testing
If you followed this how-to correctly than you should have everything working as it should. Here’s a screenshot of how mine looks.
The first block of text is the AdSense Ads. If people click there you will make money. But remember, never click your own ads or Google will ban you from AdSense!
The second block is the results, based on the keyword or text that the reader entered in the search box.
This system isn’t going to make you rich, but it will make you a few bucks.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and don’t forget to comment.
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I am currently setting up my own blog at the moment and needed to add a search, so this comes in timely. It looks like you havn’t added the google search to this blog though (or is that coming).
The big issue I see with it, is that it doesn’t have the same page design. Is the monetary gain really going to be worth it compared to the usability aspect of having the same design. Personally using this very site as an example, the way the posts are displayed using the wordpress search is far nicer and in keeping with the rest of the site.
On the other hand for really big sites the google search may be both more accurate, powerful and quicker. Also as a bigger site with presumably more traffic, you are on average going to profit more.
How about some radio button under the search box to allow users to select which option they would prefer to use?
Great tutorial, however I was never really a fan of the Google Custom Search. I must admit that Google is the search engine I use 99.9% of the time, but ever since I added a search plugin to my WordPress installation, I haven’t needed any third-party searching capabilities.
I’ll be back should that need ever change, for whatever reason. :)
Very useful tutorial :D I will use this on my blog
Nice, very nice! Just tried it and it works great. I’ll replace the wordpress search engine on my website tonight with this one.
Thanks a lot!
Yeah! My article got published ! Hope you all enjoy it. Don’t forget to comment.
I’ll keep sending more great tutorials for PBD. Make sure you don’t miss them by subscribing to the RSS feed.
Cheers
Diogo Iglésias
Different way of doing it i suppose. I modified Google Adsense for Search’s given code to suit my site. You can test it out and see how it works. :D The difference between mine and Diogo’s is that his search is on the WP page but mine is part of the theme.
Anyway, it really helps in earning. Now instead of being searched by WordPress, the search is done by Google and I do earn from it. I just got $0.24 from a click in the search today.
Nice guide. However for some reason my Google Custom Search refuses to display the banner above the results and also I get no adsense ads displayed. I did give some keywords…
Thank you much for this tutorial. For whatever reason I was so confused on just how to set up a custom search but now after following this I finally have a custom search. Any chance you can do a post on Google Adsense in general?
Excellent tutorial, and thanks for the detailed instructions.
Jon,
It might well be coming to this site. I know the design isn’t as nice, but the WordPress search is near useless. Anytime I’m looking for one of my old posts, I go to Google and use that to search this site for the terms I’m after. The WP search gives back too many results in an unhelpful order. :(
An option to choose which search to use is an idea, but i think it would just confuse a lot of people, and it’s more hassle than is needed.
Thomas,
What plugin are you using? :)
Sniper Wolf,
Cool. I hope it works out for you!
Arjen,
I’m thinking I should do the same!
Diogo,
Thanks again. :)
Goldfries,
Sounds like a similar trick. Both must work, and I’m glad you’ve had some success with the ads! :D
Jack,
Not sure what’s wrong there. Has your Adsense account been approved?
Steve,
No, but if there’s something you’d like to see covered, I can cover it. Try using Google though. There are hundreds of blogs out there, writing about AdSense. It’s a very popular topic! :D
Matt,
Hope you found it useful! :)
Excellent tutorial, I prefer to use WordPress right now because I really don’t think that big ad box looks attractive. Maybe I will try it, but it would be nice if you can share how well it does with your audience and the bounce rate.
Don’t want to make readers unhappy for a few bucks…
Syed,
The ads are optional I think. Just skip out the “Make Money” tab and you’ll get Google results without the AdSense. :) (I haven’t done it myself, so I’m not certain, but if you had to have the Ads, I’m guessing Google would make you do this all through Adsense itself.)
I’ve tried that with the old Adsense search. But I ended up having a “Search Result” menu beside my “Home” menu on my page list. Any ideas how to hide the page?
very good tutorial, and thanks for the detailed instructions.
Richard
I’ve just set-up adsense for search in a really similar way on Moveable Type.
I thought having the adsense ads was compulsory, so it’s useful to know there is a way round that – I’ll have a go at rewiring mine when I get chance. I’m not against ads on principle but they take up such a lot of room at the top of the page before you get the real results!
Thanks for the detailed tutorial. I will check it on my tv site and I think it could increase my revenue. Thank you very much!
Best Regards,
Manuel
Love this tutorial! Very good step-by-step instructions. However, I wanted to point out that you should also make this a “child” page so that the “search results” page doesn’t show up in the table of contents. I had problems with the latter at first until I gave search results a parent page. Thanks again!
I have the same problem with Jack, in that no ads are being displayed when I try my search. Maybe it takes a while to show up in the system, I’m not sure. I have been approved for adsense for almost a year now, so I don’t think that would be the problem.
Anyway great tutorial and I’ll be implementing this right away at my blog!
Nice post. I created one a month ago and it does generate some money but I’m not getting rich anytime soon. Try it out http://tutsearch.net
I actually used a completely different method to integrate CSE, and it works well too – perhaps I’ll pitch in a guest post to PBD about that some time later :)
This one is undoubtedly easier, but I hope the WYSIWIG editor doesn’t muck up code (as it usually does). Did you disable the visual view before adding the code, Michael?
I never thought of doing that until I saw this post. Golly!
WordPress users can actually go I more step and integrate the Adsense Search to the WordPress page itself , so the search looks much more like its a part of the site rather than being redirected to a page by Google.
Look @ the search on my blog or this image to see what i mean : http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/9720/searchintegrationso7.png
It’s a very good site !! Very nice work, admin :) Good luck !,
Thanks a lot! Great tutorial!
A fantastic site, and brilliant effort. A great piece of work.,
I have looked at the script.,
The thing I don’t like about it is that is almost impossible to style with CSS. If I want to use some sort of background image or something for the search input itself to style a little different, that’s out of the question. At least the last time I looked into this it was, maybe they’ve updated it and made it easier to do this since I last check it out?
Deron,
Yeah, it’s quite awkward to style. I was able to change the width of the search box earlier, and style the submit button any way I liked.
But they insist on having their branding in the form, so if you choose the faded logo inside the text field (Like I did) then there’s nothing you can do with the text field itself sadly. :(
(The other annoyance is the massive amount of advertising they put on it. It’s a bit ridiculous if you aren’t interested in making money out of it!)
What they need to do is just require that their branding be in the input and give the user a couple images that can be used as the background image on the search input so they can set it themselves in the CSS. That would allow the users to style the input however they chose as well as keep Google’s branding in there. I realize that there would be a lot of people opting to not include the branding if given the choice, but I was able to remove the branding from the search box I was playing around with no problem, so it’s not like Google has a fool proof way of keeping their branding in the input. If someone wants it gone bad enough, it’s easy to remove.
Looking at this from another point of view, i would hate to throw away my visitors from what they actually came for, at my blog.. and i mean.. and they actually tried to find something on my site.. so i dont like this idea.. and i also finds the “Do you know that every time a person searches your blog you could make money?” pretty misleading.. because you actually, only makes a bit money on this, when you throw away your visitors :)
But nice article, implementation and walkthrough :)
I’ve just started using the custom search. Not a big payout so far that’s for sure. Anyone using the watermark setting? For whatever reason I cannot get 2 watermark custom searches on the same page. One show properly but not the other one. This is driving me nutz and honestly I can’t find an answer anywhere. Help?
Is this Google custom search adsense acocunt same as the normal adsense acocunt? After applying, do they take time to review and then approve the account?
It was instant for me, but I already had an Adsense account so maybe that had something to do with it. Sorry, not certain :(
Thanks, I tried another tutorial but couldn’t work it out. Your one is very well layed out and the pictures help alot!
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Nice write up.
owner of biometria
For some reason, when I try to publish a page in WP 2.8.x with the Google javascript code, I get a blank white page. It’s really frustrating, as seems impossible to have it embedded in my site(s). I’ve tried turning off all of my plugins & still no luck…
Nice tutorial, i add to my blog, thank you bro.
Nice tutorial, I’m going to try and add this to my site.
Nice tutorial.
I loved your site and all tips you have here.
Bookmarked “Pro Blog design”, of course.
Greetings from Brazil,
Thanks
Hi I will try this guide to my blog and see the results. Thanks for the detailed procedure on how to do Google Custom Search for WordPress.
This is great, because adsense place before the search results visitors might click those ads instead of the pages on your blog. Great advice, I surely do this to my blog too.
I made everything as you said and it works well but my ads aren’t displaying… I can see search results and I set up everyting in AdSense account but still there are no ads
Thanks. It is very useful. I will do this in my blog.
Im just confused, would it be okay if you use the Google Search without their permission? And how would you get paid for it? Sorry, just a newbie here.
It’s great, just what I was looking for.
Thanks. Nice post.
Nice post. I’ve learned more from your aticle.Thanks
I just got the article what I was looking for…
Thanks Michael!!!
Thanks for this! I have a question, in google adsense there is already an option where you can make a google search bar, do i still need to go through your process or make use of the one in the adsense panel?
thank you for useful information about adsense.it will help me to earn some extra money with adsense
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this is a great custom search http://www.commenthunter.com/ for dofollow blogs…and get quick backlinks
nice post ,i learn a lot from your article!
hope you will write more ,thanks a lot for your information.
wow,good page! I like the style of your site.and thanks for your sharing.
how do i delete my built in search widget…?? you can see my template mobilemillion.blogspot.com?
This is a great post. A bit out of date, but still relevant. I’d like to share an alternative that puts site operators in control of how their content is found, includes experience enhancing widgets (top searches, recent searches, related searches), and integrates seamlessly into any design. It also works regardless of what platform the site is developed on.
For more info, go to: getwebsitesearch.com
Search engine optimization is a very hard long-time job. Thanks for your useful experience.
Hello,
I’m happy to find this article about google custom search in your website. I think you might be interested to use our search plugin.
So, I’m inviting you to try our plugin searchGBY. It is a plugin for the major browsers that helps you in your search by combining all results from the major search engines into one.
If you have questions about our plugin, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Leo
barbie cooking games
wow, great link, thank you.
I’ve never tried to make money throught search engine that integrates with Google Adsense
Best to try, hopefully it can give me extra money
Thanks..
Encouraging people to leave your site doesn’t always make sense. Using this version of the Google Custom Search does exactly that. For those who are looking to make money from their blog, perhaps this is a good option, but I don’t think it’s for everyone. Everyone has to judge for themselves.
Thanks for the comment John. This doesn’t have to take users away from your site though. You set up the iframe in a page on your own site, so they don’t need to go anywhere (Try it out in the search in the sidebar here to see what I mean).
Personally, I’m not a big fan of the ads either though. Given the small space that the iframe is usually in, ads above/below can be fairly overwhelming.