Google Custom Search For Search Marketers and Search Students

[Chris Boggs]

Alister Cameron has been inspired by Lee Oden's list of Search Marketing Blogs (http://www.toprankblog.com/search-marketing-blogs/) to create a Google Custom Search Engine. This search engine, SEM Search (http://www.alistercameron.com/sem-search/), searches only within the 250+ blogs provided in Lee's list.

So if you have a search topic, you may want to try it out. I think this will be great for both SEM's and student, as I summarized at SEW Blog (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070112-101322).

Vote if you will use this (multiple choices allowed), and share your experiences with it in this thread. Feel free to add additional options to the poll in your comments.

[toprank]

Hey Chris, thanks for drawing attention to this because it gives a nice, practical example of being able to select data sources for a niche search.

Along with Alister's efforts, megite created a "river of news" page using the OPML file from the list of search engine marketing blogs. It's a bit like techmeme and it's updated whenever we update our OPML file which is just about daily.

Check it out at: http://www.megite.com/toprankblog

[Chris Boggs]

Very cool Lee... added to my resources favorite folder. :)

[Kevin Newcomb]

Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting has had a similar Google Custom Search Engine built from SEM sources, available here (http://www.stonetemple.com/STC-SEO-Search.shtml), along with a Firefox search bar extension.

I conducted the same searches using his tool, and found the following results:

"301 redirect"
301 Redirects
www.stonetemple.com/articles/301-redirects.shtml

Permanent 301 Redirect - High Rankings Search Engine Optimization ...
www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5644

Ramblings About SEO » Search Engine Strategies
www.stonetemple.com/blog/?cat=9

David Naylor » DaveN » 301 Redirect on page code
www.davidnaylor.co.uk/archives/2005/12/22/301-redirect-on-page-code/

301 Redirect - SEO Articles - TopRank Online Marketing
www.toprankresults.com/articles/301-redirect.htm

And for "duplicate content"

Ramblings About SEO » Blog Archive » Adam Lasnik Clarifies Google ...
www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=99

Duplicate Content Issues
www.seroundtable.com/archives/003398.html

Ramblings About SEO » Blog Archive » Affiliate Programs and ...
www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=20

Duplicate Content - Get it right or perish
www.webmasterworld.com/google/3060898.htm

Ramblings About SEO » Blog Archive » The Cost of Duplicate Content
www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=28

All in all, still good results, better than a general Google search. It is a bit skewed towards Stone Temple's own content, which can be partially forgiven due to the quality of that content.

[Chris Boggs]

lol I love that the content from Stone Temple is #1 in both of those...you have to wonder about any thresholds that were defined or however it is one sets up the custom engine. ;)

I hope that Lee adds the Stone Temple content to his blog list and then we could see if the same results happened then?

[Kevin Newcomb]

Eric Enge tells me that he's tweaked his search tool to remove the Stone Temple bias. He had been experimenting with the weighting capabilities Google provides. It's interesting to note that Google provides quite a bit of tuning capabilities, so if you're using it for a site search and want your own results to show up first, you can. We wrote about it in SearchDay (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3623765) back in October.

I re-ran the results tonight, and got this:

"301 redirect"

Permanent 301 Redirect - High Rankings Search Engine Optimization ...
www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5644

301 Redirect - SEO Articles - TopRank Online Marketing
www.toprankresults.com/articles/301-redirect.htm

David Naylor » DaveN » 301 Redirect on page code
www.davidnaylor.co.uk/archives/2005/12/22/301-redirect-on-page-code/

301 Redirect Help!
www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/11903.htm

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO » SEO advice: url ...
www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/


"duplicate content"

Duplicate Content - Get it right or perish
www.webmasterworld.com/google/3060898.htm

Duplicate Content Issues and Search Engines -- SEO by the SEA
www.seobythesea.com/?p=212

Duplicate Content Observation
www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/31430.htm

Dropped for Duplicate Content - Mirror Sites - Copywriting ...
www.highrankings.com/issue157.htm

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Deftly dealing with ...
googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/12/deftly-dealing-with-duplicate-content.html

[Kostis Panayotakis]

An interesting idea - a layer of search application logic to facilitate (or pre-filter on) vertical search.
K