Google unveils ‘custom’ searches

Google will on Tuesday launch a customisable search engine that users can carry on their own blogs and other websites, a move that potentially opens up a big new market for its search listings and related advertising. By letting companies and individuals build their own specialised search engines, it will also create competition for the many new “vertical” search products that have recently been launched on the web, she added.

These sites, which deal with narrow areas of interest from job vacancies to information technology, have become one of the industry’s big new growth areas.

Users of Google Custom Search Engine will be able to select the websites they want to be included in their searches, and add to this list in future by “tagging” websites they visit. Any searches will then return results just from that slice of the Google search index.