Google Offers Mini Site Search to SMBs

By Greg McNevin

July 19, 2007: In an effort to further boost the popularity of its dominating search engine, Google is now offering businesses a mini customised version of its software to small businesses wishing to add search functionality to their websites.

For US$100 (AU$115), businesses can integrate the search behemoth’s Custom Search Business Edition (CSBE) to their websites, enabling 5,000 pages to be indexed and searched by visitors without them having to leave the site.

Firms with larger sites can pay US$500 (AU$575) for up to 50,000 pages of indexing – a significant saving when compared to Google’s hardware-based enterprise offering.

“CSBE builds on the Google Custom Search Engine, a hosted search solution we introduced last October that allows organisations to create a search engine and search results that are tailored to their point of view,” writes Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Enterprise Search and Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search, on the official Google blog. “Businesses that want further control over results presentation and integration with their website can obtain results through XML. Now those of you with business sites have the option to turn off ads and have further control over branding.

“This offering should be a great help to the millions of businesses that have a web presence but don't offer users any way to search the site. Instead of being left on their own to navigate content, visitors to CSBE-enabled sites will be able to navigate through search results without ever leaving the site,” continued Mangtani.

Overall the service represents a middle ground between the company’s ad supported free website search and the US$1995 (AU$2295) enterprise appliance it introduced two years ago, and according to Google eliminates the need for small businesses to install and maintain their own search technology.

It says the service can be easily set up and managed online and results can be fully customised through an XML API, and enables detailed reporting so customer interaction with a site can be tracked and used for further search and site improvements.

This monitoring does raise another question though, with its reputation for capturing and storing information, just how much data does Google itself capture from the service?

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