Google’s programmable search engine is easy to set up and is a great way to get the custom search results you want quickly and without clutter. Google first introduced this feature in 2006, and it remains underused and underappreciated, but everyone should use this handy search tool.
What Is Google’s Programmable Search Engine
Most of the time, a normal Google search provides few good sources. Unfortunately, ads, sponsored links, irrelevant results, clickbait sites, YouTube videos, social media posts, and other useless content often clutters up the results. Google’s programmable search engine solves this problem. The best part is that you don’t need any real technical knowledge. If you can copy and paste links, you can create a custom search engine.
How to Create a Custom Programmable Search Engine
As stated, creating a custom programmable search engine is really simple with Google’s free tools.
Create and name your search engine
First, go to Programmable Search Engine and make sure you’re logged in with your Google account. Select Get Started, click Add to Control Panel, and name your search engine.
Enter the websites you want to search
Now, fill in the What to search for box. It will give you examples of how to enter the websites you want to include. For example, entering www.makeuseof.com/* will include the entire makeuseof.com website, and entering *.bbc.co.uk will search the entire BBC domain, which includes television, radio, news, and more. You can add as many sites as you want here and can always add more or remove some later.
Next, fill in your search settings. There are only two boxes here. If you want to include images in your search, turn on image search, and if you want it to block adult content from your searches, turn on safe search.
Now, confirm you’re not a robot and click Create; Your search engine is ready. There’s a small code snippet on this page, but you’ll only need it if you want to add it to your website.
Bookmark your custom search engine
Click Back to All Engines at the top left of the page. Here, you’ll see a link to your search engine and any other engines you’ve created. Click the name of the search engine to edit, add, or remove the site or change settings.
Click the link symbol under the public URL to open your search engine in a new window. You can bookmark this page to use your new search engine whenever you need it—press CTRL+D on Google Chrome to bookmark the current page.
Programmable search engines can be a great way to get high-quality Google search results faster and with less sifting through ads and poor results. They limit your news search to trusted sites, focus work searches on industry publications, limit study searches to professor-approved sources, create one for job searching, create one for shopping to search only retailers you know and trust, or help you make sure kids only find kid-friendly, educational sites.
Since custom programmable search engines are so fast and easy to create, you can create one to quickly complete a particular project and delete it when you’re finished. Experiment and search as you please without clutter.