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Really Make Google Your Own
May 12, 2007

The last post was actually a teaser. Sure, using iGoogle lets you personalize the front end of Google, but does that really make Google your own? But wait, by reading this blog post you can also learn how to control the back end searching that Google does...and all for three easy payments of your personal information (come now, nothing is free you know).

Google Co-Op allows you to create not just a customized front-end, but a customized search set for Google to query. Garrett Hungerford used Google Co-Op to create LISZEN, a customized search engine that searches library blogs. An example search for School Library 2.0 shows that the customized search works very much like the Google we know and [love/hate].

So how can you use this? If you have a Google account, go to the Google Co-Op Create page and click the button to create a search engine. You will be asked to describe your engine and then you will be given a chance to enter sites you want to search. One example would be to prepare a custom search engine for a class that is coming to the library to research countries. You can build a search engine that queries the CIA World Factbook, InfoPlease, CountryReports.org, and the International Monetary Fund. The resulting Country Search Engine lets you provide a guided searching experience for your students.

Posted by Chris Harris on May 12, 2007 | Comments (0)