Introducing the Custom Search Web Element

Posted by: Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager and Nicholas Weininger, Software Engineer

Google Web Elements, unveiled today at Google I/O, build on your favorite Google products so you can easily add richness, interactivity and monetization to your website with the simplicity of copy and paste. We've packaged this simplicity into the new Custom Search element, making it even easier for you to add Google-quality search to your website. By helping your users find information faster, you can retain users on your website and monetize search with relevant Google ads. The element will allow you to create an interactive, inline search experience, so users don't need to leave the web page they are on in order to search.

You can create a Custom Search element in two convenient ways: via the Custom Search element wizard, or by selecting the appropriate options within the Custom Search control panel.

When you log on to the control panel, you'll see links to the Custom Search element wizard if you list your search engines (My search engines). If you click through to the wizard from the control panel, the appropriate search engine information is automatically extracted by the wizard -- all you need to do is preview your search results, and copy and paste the generated code into your website.

You can also generate the right code for embedding the Custom Search element into your website by going to the updated Get code tab in the control panel. A new option allows you to generate element code.


The Custom Search element supports Promotions, which let you highlight specific information for specific queries. Refinement Labels automatically appear as separate tabs in the element, so you can navigate quickly to the category of results that you're looking for. The screenshot below shows a preview of the search results in the element wizard.

While the Custom Search element is designed to help you get started quickly without spending time on the deep technical details, it is powered by Google's scalable and flexible developer APIs, including the AJAX Search and Custom Search APIs, offering a world of customization.

Let us know if there are further improvements we can make to this user experience. To learn more about Google Web Elements, check out the AJAX API blog.