Fuzzy Search: The return of the Google search box

• Do you use categories?
• Do you use tags?
• Do you offer a full text search?

Are you satisfied having three different search result pages inside your blog?

Let's say we have a blog with 300+ articles, 1,000 tags, about 50 categories and some archive pages. And maybe you are linking to your internal full text search results via search links too. All those internal links are good for SEO.

But are three different search result pages a good approach to offer a valuable site search?

I say 'No' because your site and archive pages are transparent but not all (!) pages are mirrored in the results. Only specific parts of your site show up when doing a tag/category/full text search. I am not even talking about the valuable content inside the comments (like here on performancing.com) which normally is not indexed internally at all.

Let's introduce the web 1.0 'fuzzy search' box...

History: The search problem

Long time ago webmasters did not have the possibility to offer a search feature to their readers on their hand crafted HTML pages. Webmasters had to implement external search forms which were offered as a give away by several search engines. The disadvantage was that visitors were sent away to the search engine result pages instead of staying on the site.

When the usage of CMS became modern the external search forms vanished away. Instead database driven searches were offered, then we had category list pages, sitemaps and today tags are making their way.

Problem: Today search results are separated to different output pages.

The Google search box

The 'Google AdSense for search results' search form is so old school, isn't it? A couple of weeks ago I did some tests with the Google search form and the test results were astonishing for me.

• Doing a 'site:' search looks through all the indexed pages on my site. As Google today indexes new articles and pages on my site lightning fast there is no time lag anymore as it was in the old days when it took three or more days to show up in the SERPs.
• On the Google search engine result page the most relevant article is in most cases (~>95%) on the 1st position. Isn't this behavior exactly what a reader is looking for instead of checking all the different search possibilities?
• The SERP also offers the nice 'Do you look for ' spelling correction feature. The spelling correction feature is simply not available for the internal CMS search!

So here I was seeing that the old school Google search box gives me 1st class results. There was an obvious decision to make. I decided to implement the Google search box as my #1 search tool!

Well, you have to ignore though that the SERPs look pretty horrible :)

Tweak the Google search box

The 'Google AdSense for search results' search box is a simple form in a table. This way all presentation parameters can be tuned so that the form fits nicely into your website design.

Some 'Google AdSense for search results' search box details:

• Form tags 'label' text can be changed the way you like it
• Input type 'values' text can be changed the way you like it
• Add the word 'checked' to the input type="radio" when doing a multi site search (recommended) and you will see that the specified radio button is activated. Of course you have to delete 'checked' at the standard place.
• You can change the table content for the radio buttons to give more explanation to your readers. A code example:

Output: Search here on (x) My site or in the ( ) Internet.

The result is that the search will be done on your site by default and only in the big Google Internet index if activated. And as it is an understandable sentence the choice makes more sense to your readers.

You can add CSS classes or IDs to the Google search form table. This way you can tweak the whole appearance to fit to your site.

Show the SERP on your site but be aware of a trap

Btw: The Google search box is available via the Google AdSense program. Using the 'Google AdSense for search results' search box even pays back a little.

In the Google AdSense for search result pages setup you can choose to use an own sub-directory with an own SERP template to include the search results in an iframe on your site. This way you can use your standard header, footer and sidebars and the SERP will show up in between. Please check the Google TOS to see what is allowed on that internal SERP!!! There are restrictions!

In my Textpattern installation I have discovered a little trap which normally is a security measure. The allowed URLs are limited to a maximum of 200 sign in the standard installation. For the internal Google search result page to work you must allow as many signs as the Google search link needs. As the link contains all the parameters it is very long already plus the maximum 255 signs for the search phrase!

If your Google search box doesn't show results on your site check if your CMS also has some kind of URL length limitation activated. Setting the maximum URL length limit higher may increase security risks!

What do you think about 'The return of the Google search box'?

(Bookmark service - Keywords: Google AdSense Search Archives afs)