Customize Your Own Search Engine
Last updated Mar. 18, 2008.
by Greg R.
Create your own customized search engine that searches just a portion of one of the big search engines. Several options are available with various services and limitations.
My Comparisons
To compare these search builders, I tried creating a search engine to search the sites of State Libraries using each tool. See the Search State Libraries page for the resulting search engines, notes, and a list of sites included.
Examples Built by Others
- ALA-RUSA Best Free Reference Sites
- Business Research Search Engine from Robert Berkman
- Law Library Search Engine
- Librarian's E-Library
- LISZEN (library blogs)
- Metropolitan Planning Organizations
- OpenDOAR Search Repository Contents (pages on Open Access repositories' sites)
- Public Transit Sites
- Pandia's Search Engine Topic Search
- State Departments of Transportation
- University Transportation Centers
Search Builders compared:
| Database | Keywords? | Need Site to Publish? | Sub-directories? | Limit | Stats? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gigablast Custom Topic Search | Gigablast | No | Yes | Yes | 500 sites | No |
| Google Custom Search Engine | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes | |
| Live Search Macros see instructions |
Live Search | Yes | No | No (until inurl: functions again) | 30 basic; more in advanced | No |
| Swicki | Yahoo! | Yes | No | Yes | 4000 characters | Yes |
| Rollyo | Yahoo! | No | No | No | 25 sites | No |
| Yahoo! Search Builder | Yahoo! | Yes | Yes | No? | 25 sites | Yes |
Key:
Database: The underlying search engine database that feeds the results.
Keywords?: Does it allow the addition of keywords to each search.
Need Site to Publish? Do you need your own site to put up the search engine. A No means that it can be hosted by the provider.
Sub-directories? Can it limit to specific subdirectories on a site like site.edu/library or can it only handle the site level limit such as site.edu?
Limit: Maximum number of sites that can be included.
Stats? Does it provide usage statistics?