Help Your Visitors Zero in with Site-Flavored Google search


As Google has gained in their search reputation the past few years, many webmasters have added a Google search box to their pages. This is meant to provide a quick path for visitors to continue their search, should they not find what they're looking for on the original site. To help these webmasters provide even more service to their visitors, Google is currently beta-testing a new feature called Site-Flavored Google Search.

A site-flavored search will allow searchers to view results more closely related to the site where they started their search. For example, a webmaster for an auto parts site can fill out a profile to tell Google about their site. Searchers from that site can then use the Google search form to view search results more closely related to automotive topics than a general search might provide. A search from that site for "oil" might return information about the various types and brands of automotive engine oil, while a generic Google search might return broader business-related results from oil refiners and industry sites.

When a visitor performs a site-flavored Google search, some results may display with a small graphic of colored balls. This graphic is an indication to the searcher that Google determined the result next to it was relevant to their search. This is an option that is set by the webmaster in the site-flavored search profile. Note that a user's browser must be relatively new (IE5 or higher, NS5 or higher, or Mozilla 1.4 or higher), and they must have Javascript enabled, in order to use site-flavored search.

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.