Creating a Google Custom Search Engine for your website

You can create your own Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) by logging in to cse.google.com with your UDelNet ID and password. Restrictions:

  • Google CSE can only index and search websites that match up to 10 search parameters.
  • Google only offers 200 "promotions" per individual CSE.

Setting up your own Google CSE collection

  1. Log in to cse.google.com with your UDelNet ID and password.
  2. Get started by clicking New search engine in the left column or by clicking the Add button in the main CSE window.
  3. After completing the tasks on the Google CSE Setup menu, click Look and feel.
  4. After you have selected the way you want the search results displayed, click Save & Get Code.
  5. Copy and paste the code into your Web page where you would like the CSE search box to appear.
    • Doing so will display a search bar that fills the entire width of the parent container (div, page, cell, etc.) in which you place it.
    • A visitor can type a search term and click the Search button.

There are many options for how your site can display search results. To learn more about creating, styling, and using a Google CSE, start with these Google Help pages:

Adding Google CSE in WordPress

If you are interested in replacing WordPress's built-in search with a Google CSE, you can do so with a plugin. Your site must be set to Allow search engines to index this site under Settings → Reading.

  1. Activate the Simple Google Search plugin.
  2. From cse.google.com, copy your Google Search Engine ID to the clipboard.
  3. Under Settings, choose General and add your Google Search Engine ID at the bottom.

A full tutorial is available from CampusPress.

Print Article

Related Articles (1)

Attachments (0)

No attachments found.