Improve your WordPress search results with a Google custom search engine
![thumbnail Improve your WordPress search](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/thumbnail1.jpg)
Harness the power of Google's search technology
With a Google Custom Search Engine, you replace the substandard WordPress search with all the searching power of Google, but limited to your own website, so that your visitors will always get the best possible results when they perform a search on your site. Before you start, it’s worth noting that the free version of Custom Search shows Google sponsored results with your search results, so there will always be some ads on your search results page. This may not be a problem for you, as most searchers can easily distinguish the Google ads from the real search results and will ignore them. In addition, if you use Google AdSense, you can link the ads on your search results page to your AdSense account, so that you will still benefit even if someone clicks on one of the ads. However, if you really don’t want the risk of having people click on the Google ads and leave your site, you can pay from $100 per year for Google Site Search, which allows you to remove the ads, as well as giving you guaranteed support and greater customization options. Definitely worth considering if you run a high revenue site where search is very important.Setting up your Custom Search Engine
To set up your Google Custom Search Engine, go to google.com/cse and click ‘Create a Custom Search Engine’.![create-search-engine Create a custom search engine](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/create-search-engine.jpg)
![describe-search-engine Describe your search engine](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/describe-search-engine.jpg)
![search-engine-styles Search controls](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/search-engine-styles.jpg)
![search-engine-layout Choose a layout](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/search-engine-layout.jpg)
![search-results-details Specify search results](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/search-results-details.jpg)
![search-box-widget Search box widget](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/search-box-widget.jpg)
![search-results-template Search results template](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/search-results-template.jpg)
Tweaking your search engine
There are a few more things you can do to really make the most of your new Google custom search engine.Remove certain pages from your results
Often there are pages in a WordPress site that you don’t want people to be able to find by searching your site. For example, a thank you page that visitors see after they subscribe to your mailing list. You can prevent Google from indexing these pages by clicking ‘Indexing’ in the left menu, then in the ‘Specific URLs’ section, enter each URL you don’t want to be indexed, preceded by a - symbol, like this: -http://www.yoursite.com/thankyou![deindex-urls Specific URLs](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/deindex-urls.jpg)
Promote certain pages to the top of your results
There may be certain pages on your site that you would like to promote to the top of your search results for a particular query. For example, you might have a comprehensive guide to SEO that you would like people to find if they search for ‘optimization’ or ‘rankings’. To promote a page, click on 'Promotions' in the left menu, and then click ‘Add’. Enter the queries you want the page to be promoted for, separated by commas (you can also use regular expressions if you’re feeling really clever), then enter a custom title for your page, and the page URL. You can also enter a lifetime for the promotion if you want it to end after a certain date. Click OK.![promotion Create a promotion](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2012/06/promotion.jpg)
Synonyms
By clicking the Synonyms link in the menu, you can specify words with the same meaning so that they will show the same results in a search. For example, you could specify that searches for ‘boss’ will return the same results for both ‘boss’ and ‘employer’.Autocompletions
You can also set up autocompletions to help users search more quickly by suggesting terms for them when they start typing. You can enter specific terms that will be autocompleted or not, as well as specific promotions that will be autocompleted, to show the result as soon as the user starts typing.Business settings
There are many more features available to you with a Google custom search engine if you pay for Google Site Search. You’ll be able to completely customize your search results, remove the Google branding, and get 24 x 7 email support. For small sites, it’s probably not necessary, but if you run a large site and you want full control over your site search, I’d definitely look into it.Dan Johnson
Written exclusively for WDD by Dan Johnson. Dan is an artist and blogger, who helps inspire people to make a living from their creativity over at Right Brain Rockstar. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
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