WebSearch Dangers/Questions/Requests

Anticipating some topics of discussion...

[suidas]

Potential dangers:
1. A spider won't pick up the JS in an Adsense Ad, but the WebSearch code isn't JS. Spiders will hit it. Got it on every page? Count on multiple hits being generated. Sounds like a good way to get thrown off WebSearch AND Adsense.

Questions I'm eager to find the answer to:
1. Does WebSearch work better on authority sites, or worse?
2. Does WebSearch work better with SiteSearch on, or worse? Does it vary, eg., by whether it's an authority site.
3. Does WebSearch work better if you've got crappy pages? ("Crap, this page has nothing. I'll see what Google says.")

Some requests:
1. Google should set whether SiteSearch is radio-button on or not. I'd like my visitors to be able to search my site, but I'm not sure I want that to be the default.
2. As is already clear, there's going to be a cry for alternative formats. It would be nice to get WebSearch to play nice with Adsense skyscrapers. But I can understand why Google will approach this carefully. Google search boxes are little branding events. It's one thing to negotiate how the "Powered by Google" box looks on CNN.com, another to let the dogs run wild.

[blaze]

It'll be interesting to see how much traffic bleeds off the page via the "http://www.google.com" around the logo.

[suidas]

Christmas comes early. Check out Google Lab's new idea: "Site Flavored Google Search."

[google.com...]

1. Cool
2. It would be cooler if it used its mined-and-analyzed understanding of your page, rather than having you pick from a limited set of categories. Google Sets and Webquotes have convinced me they know enough to do this sort of thing.
3. Can I get that in WebSearch flavor please?
4. I worry Google's losing focus. There's a lot to be said for a simple, basically non-customizable search box that produces boffo results.

[jomaxx]

A spider would follow the plain link to Google. Some spiders might conceivably try to call "google.com/custom".

But I doubt any spider would populate all the form fields that identify your site and actually do a form submit. I don't see this affecting reported impressions or clicks.

[blaze]

It'll also be interesting to see if this makes an impact on Google's traffic.

Why search from Google when you can search from your friends website..

[f00sion]

jomaxx is right, spiders dont submit forms.

[ChrisKud5]

I would say a downside is the "fees" they talk about in the program policies and TOS.

Interesting that they do not give specifics, but just say that revenue might be offset by fees for websearch.

I am not TOUCHING this thing as i have a feeling a traditional search with adsense in the SERPS will pay better than this gimmick.