Do you have a group of websites that are your favorites? Or a set of online resources that are similar that you frequently use to answer homework or reference questions? Well customizable vertical search engines may be the tool for you. Each allows you to create your own search tool for the just the websites you know and trust. One of the most popular is Rollyo. Two others are the Google Custom Search Engines and Gigablast Custom Topic Search.
Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look at some of these examples that have already been created:
- Public Domain e-Books Search
- Rare Book Library Search
- Quick Quotes
- Reference
- Expanding Your Horizons helps nurture girls‘ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
- Green Maven iemphasises websites with Green and Social Values
- Spittoon‘s search of wine blogs
- Explore other rolls here, or here, or here.
2. You also might want to search the web (and blogs and videos and ...) and find out what others are thinking about custom search engines. Here‘s a couple starting points:
- Conversation Marketing‘s video tutorial on the Google Custom Search Engine
- Matt Cutts on the Google Custom Search Engine
3. Create a post in your blog about custom search engines. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?
Optional:
Create a custom search engine and add it to your blog. It‘s really quite simple.
Note: There are also instructions here on how to create a custom search using Rollyo and make it an option in your list of search engines in Firefox.
