Custom Search Guide – Directory of CSEs

I see Google’s CSE (Custom Search Engine) product as the new Directory 2.0. Until now, human-edited directories were the natural medium for users who wanted a human-optimized guide to the web. A CSE, however, combines the best aspects of a directory and a search engine. Users are now programmed to use search rather than navigating through a directory structure, but a search engine generally gives the user much more than she wants – including spam and non-relevant results. A directory is much more likely to supply the user with precise, relevant results, but she may have to follow a lengthy tree-structured path to arrive at those results. The CSE, however, can be tailored to a specific user-intent, utilizing only human-approved sources, brought together with the ease of a Google search box.

Read more

Your own niche search engine – compliments of Yahoo!

Yahoo! just announced on their blog that you can now easily create your own niche search engine, using a new tool called the Yahoo! Search Builder. You can seed the search engine with sites you trust, and customize the look and feel of both the search box and search results page. Read all about it, and create a search engine just for your niche.