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How to create a Custom Google Search Engine
Go towww.google.comto sign up for a Google Account. You can choose to get a Gmailaccount, or if you like, you can just sign up for a Google account but logging in with anexisting email account from a different provider, e.g.joetheplumber@hotmail.com.Once you’ve signed into your Google account, go towww.google.com/cse(“cse” stands forCustom Search Engine).You can then either click the big blue buttonto
create a new custom search engine
orclick the link
manage your existing searchengines
. (Note: you can also create newsearch engines once you’re on the Managepage.)
Creating a new Custom Search Engine
1.
Basic Information:
•
Name
: Enter a name for your Search Engine. This will be displayed as a title.
•
Description
: Enter a descriptive paragraph stating its purpose – what sort of sites are included, and thus, what sort of information users are likely to beable to find using your search engine.
•
Keywords
: Don’t enter keywords, as apparently they can influence thesearch results and create an unintended bias. Just leave this field blank.
•
Language
: The default is English. If you are using the search engine forModern Language classes, choose the appropriate language.
2.
What do you want to search?
The default is “Only sites I select”, which gives you asthe creator much more control of the sorts of search results the students are likely to find.
3.
Select some sites:
This is where you enter all the sites you want your searchengines to use. If you have another tab or window open, go to the sites you want,and copy the exact URL or each site, and then paste them into this box in the searchengine setup page.
•
Note: if you want to search all pages within a site, make sure you only pastein the address of the site and don’t include the name of any pages. Forexample,http://www.nytimes.comwill search the whole of the New York Times site, whereashttp://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/index.html only searches within the technology section of that site.
•
Note: below you can see how to go back later to edit the list of sites.
4.
Select an edition
:
•
Choose standard edition, and put a checkmark to indicate you don’t want toshow ads (since we’re an educational institution, this should be fine).
•
Put a checkmark to indicate you have read the Terms of Service. (You may even want to have a glance at them?)
5.
Click the
Next
button.You will then be given the option of trying out your new search engine. Type in a term andhit the Search button. If it doesn’t seem to work as expected, there’s a link to go back to step1 to edit the list of sites. When you’re done, click the
Finish
button, which will take you tothe page where you can manage your existing search engines.
Managing your existing Search Engines
This page,
My Search Engines
, displays a list of your search engines. For each searchengine, you will have four options outlined below, after which I will discuss the controlpanel in more detail:
•
Homepage:
takes you to the homepage for your search engine. If you simply wantto link to this search engine, just copy the URL and paste it on a webpage or email itto others.
•
Control Panel:
this is where you can edit your search engine.
o
Change the name and other basic settings
o
Add, edit or delete the sites searched by the search engine. You can alsodecide whether to include in the sites searched any pages or sites linked toby the sites you’ve added. For example,
•
Statistics:
Shows you the usage history of your search engine (cumulative of allusers world-wide, not just yourself).
•
Delete:
deletes the search engine you’ve created.
Editing your Custom Search Engine in the Control Panel
From the My Search Engine page (http://www.google.com/coop/manage/cse), click the
Control Panel
link. You will find a number of settings you can edit there:
•
Basics
: you can change the basic information and settings you indicated when youcreated the search engine.
•
Sites
: This page lists all the sites you’ve already included. You can delete some of these or add new ones. If you’ve already included a lot of sites, and want to find oneof them but cannot remember the exact name, you can filter the sites by entering aword you know was in the URL and clicking
Apply Filter
.
o
When adding or editing the links listed here (just double-click them to openthem for editing), you can choose to also link to sites linked to by the siteyou’ve included. For example, if your search engine only searches the NewYork Times website, you can choose whether your search engine should alsosearch all sites linked to in the pages of the New York Times.
o
You can also exclude sites, e.g. if you want to link to the New York Times andalso to links from New York Times,
except links to the Washington Post
. Thisis thus an exception to the rule described in the previous point.
•
Look and feel
: This allows you to customize the appearance of your search engine.
•
Code
: Do NOT use this code for embedding on the portal. It doesn’t work. Instead,read the next section below.
•
Collaboration
: Invite others to collaborate in developing the search engine (up to100 people).
•
Preview
: This is just that – a quick way to see what the search engine looks likewith the changes you’ve made.There are other parts, but none of importance to what you’re likely to do with your classes.
Sharing your Custom Search Engine with others
There are multiple ways of sharing this with your students. You could simply copy the URLof the homepage and email it to people who need to use it, or you can place the link to theURL on a webpage, e.g. in the class links in your portal site.However, integrating resources in a seamless way makes them more user-friendly. If yourCustom Search Engine is sitting there as part of your page, students are more likely toactually use it than if it were just a link.Here’s how you can embed your Custom Search Engine in a web page:1.
Go to the homepage of your Custom Search Engine and click (towards the bottomright of the page) the link Add this search engine to your blog or webpage ».2.
Click the
Get the Code
button.3.
A textbox appears with some HTML code. Highlight one word and then click Ctrl+A(Windows) or Command+A (Mac) to select all of the text in the box. Then copy thattext.Okay, phew! You have now copied the embed code you need. Next, it is time to paste in thecode somewhere so as to place the Custom Search Engine on a webpage. I’ll describe howto place it on a portal class page. (Note: the instructions below are for Internet Explorer.)4.
Go to the homepage of your portal site, click
Site Actions
, and then click
Edit Page
.If you change your mind at any point, you can click
Exit Edit Mode
immediately under Site Actions.
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