Installing Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) On WordPress Site

Whatever default search engine is present on WordPress website is not good enough and all bloggers usually wish to install Custom search plugin from Google. It is very easy to install the Google Custom search plugin which is very effective and replaces the default search with custom search from Google. You can also make money by clicking the Google Ads which appear in search results. You can follow the below steps to install Google Custom search in your WordPress website,

1. First download Google Custom Search plugin from the plugins directory in WordPress.
2. The plugin will be available in compressed zip format. Unzip the file and copy it to wp-content/plugins folders. After that you should create an account in Google Custom search which is similar to creating an email account. You will have to provide certain details which define your search engine and once you sign up you can create your own custom search engine.
3. After you sign up click the button “Create a custom Search Engine” to enter the settings page for designing your custom search.
4. Provide the details which are asked in the form like the name of your search engine, languages to be supported, description etc.
5. Since you will have to search only within your website choose the option of default search mode as “Only sites I select” so that it does not search the entire web.
6. Provide the complete search path which includes http:// within the sites to search box.
7. There are different editions available including the Standard and Site Search Edition. If you do not want ads to be displayed on your website and can pay hefty fee, then you choose the Site Search edition where pricing starts from minimum 100$ per year. But if you want a free version, then choose the “Standard Edition”.
8. Now, click the check box to agree the Terms and Conditions and click Next button.
9. There will be a preview page to try some searches before you can finalize the search wizard. Once you are done click the Finish button.
10. Now the custom search engine is created and you can customize the search page in the control panel.
11. You can check different things like Websites, Promotion Pages, Refinements and Indexing is done as per your expectations. If you want to change any settings you can do it in the control panel. You can also change the appearance and decide the hosting options. iFrame is a good feature with different customization options and separate page for your website results.
12. Select the style and Save it. Now use the “Get Code” option to obtain the code for the custom search engine.
13. Provide the complete URL for the page including http:// in your website in which you want search results to be displayed. For instance, http://www.yourwebsite.com/search_results/
14. Also specify the page where you want ads to be displayed. You can make some money by clicking the ads displayed in search results by signing up for Google Adsense.

You can get better results with custom search engine from Google rather than using the default WordPress search engine. You can implement different templates as you wish and signing up for Google Custom search is very easy and similar to creating a Gmail account. You can choose the custom layout for your search engine and obtain the code.