Better search results

Posted by Tom Duerig, Software Engineer

We've implemented two frequently-requested features that we think will improve the quality of results in your Custom Search Engine.

1. Keywords now have a much stronger effect on Custom Search results. This helps give better targeted results and more flexibility than before. You can change your search engine's keywords in the "Basics" tab of your search engine's control panel. If you don't like the effect that keywords have your search results, you can also remove them.

Compare the results on this yoga search engine when looking for a "mat" with and without the keyword "yoga" --

with keywords:
http://www.google.com/cse?q=mat&cx=005239880967462049052%3A412vkh_dcla

without keywords:
http://www.google.com/cse?q=mat&cx=005239880967462049052:mdwcyik6y9m

2. For the XML hackers, FILTER labels now are effected by scores and weights just like BOOST labels. This simplifies rearranging your search results so that the content you care about comes up first. In order to prioritize a set of pages, give annotations for those pages' higher scores.

Compare the results of using scores in this vision search engine to prioritize *.ucsd.edu/* over other schools.

with scores (XML definition):
http://www.google.com/cse?q=camera&cref=http://www.google.com/cse/samples/ucsdvision.xml

without scores (XML definition):
http://www.google.com/cse?q=camera&cref=http://www.google.com/cse/samples/ucsdvision-noscores.xml

As always, feel free to give us your feedback in the discussion group.