Google Offers Search to Small Publishers
Google will offer small publishers Web search services formerly reserved for bigger Web sites like AOL and EarthLink, the search giant said last week.With AdSense for Search, Web publishers can add a Google search box to their sites. Queries from the sites take users to a Google Web page, and any clicks on paid search listings are shared with the publishers.
Google did not reveal the revenue split it would offer, but a spokesman said it would be the same for all publishers. Large partners like AOL are thought to get as much as 75 percent of the revenue generated from their Google partnerships.
AdSense for Search is available for sites in English, Japanese and 10 European languages. Publishers can customize the search results page with their own color schemes and logo.
The search program builds off AdSense's wildly popular contextual listings service, which displays content-targeted text listings on thousands of Web sites. Unlike that service, however, Google plans to share more information with AdSense for Search publishers, including queries, clicks, click-through rate and earnings.
Google also said it would begin offering publishers a more customized search option for their sites. Niche publishers can sign up for "site-flavored search," a Google Labs project that returns more personalized Web results. Sites can customize their search engine through a list of 200 topics. Search results are adjusted based on those parameters. For example, searches from a tech publisher for "mouse" would move up results related to computer peripherals compared with rodent results.
The search feature is available for free and does not carry advertising. The site-flavored search is an extension of a personalized search engine in Google Labs, which allows users to identify interests that Google then uses to personalize their search results.
