The Google custom search bar returns in my opinion the most accurate results for your blog.The search bar itself is compact and stylish and can be easily added to your blog.For those of you not familiar with the Google Custom search bar it basically looks the same as the search on the Google home page and when added to your blog returns results in the same format.The big difference is the results returned are
All posts on
Your Blog.This is a great way to let the readers of your blog quickly find exactly what they are looking for.The Google custom search bar has been vastly improved over the years and is still constantly getting better but i have always had one
Big Issue with using Google Custom search on my Blogger blogs.
One of the great options you are offered when setting up a Google custom search box for your blog is to open the results within your site or blog.So instead of readers leaving your blog and going to a separate Google page to see the results of their search they will see the results on a page that is actually part of your blog.This has a number of benefits here are three of the main ones :
- It's never good to send readers away from your blog and the separate Google page does not have a direct link back to your homepage.
- As they stay in your blog it increases your views and the search results page will be crawled by Google helping SEO.
- Displaying the results within your blog looks much more professional.
That's Fantastic but because of the minimum requirements set by Google such as minimum width of search results pages Blogger users cant actually choose the option to display the Search results on within their blog...Until Now !
In this post i will show you how you can create a totally unique page on your blog and display the results from Google Custom search on that page.
Important Update - Since this post i have created an easier way to display the results in your blog.You can still create a unique page as shown here but for the new method go to this post -
Easily Open AdSense For Search Results In BloggerDemo 1 - Go to our demo blog and use the search bar in the header to see the results page :
Demo Click HereCool Eh ? - But that's just a plain page, take a look at how you can customize the page :
Demo 2 - I have fully customized the search results page for Spice Up Your Blog, use any of the search bars on this log to see the result:
Click Here To Open Spice Up Your Blog In A New WindowExtra Cool eh ? - You can see more results by using any of the search bars on this blog.
There are a number of step involved to get your search bar and search results page.
- You need to create a new Google custom search bar for your blog.Only AdSense members have the option to Embed results in their Blog if you have not yet joined AdSense apply here - Google AdSense.
- You need to create the page for the results and add code to your template to customize the page.
Don't worry i will walk you through all the steps.So lets get stared, make sure to back up your template and take your time.
Open Google Custom Search Results In Your Blog
Create The Page For The Google Search ResultsStep 1. First we will create the page that displays your search results.From your Blogger dashboard click 'New Post' or 'Edit Posts' > and in the top menu click 'Edit Pages' > Now Click 'New Page'.
Step 2. Add A Title Like 'Search Results' to your page but leave the actual content area totally blank and publish the page.You will now be asked how you would like the page to appear choose 'No Gadget - Link To Pages Manually' and publish.OK you will now be presented with the option to view the page, click that link.
Step 3. For the next step we need the URL of the blank page you just created so copy the URL from the address bar and keep it or you can go back for it when needed.
That's the first part covered We will Create the search bar In your AdSense account.
Get The Search Bar Code From AdSenseMany of you will have created an AdSense custom search bar previously and it's a fairly straight forward process, this time we just have to chose to use the '
Open Results In My Own Site' Option.Lets have a look :
1. Log Into AdSense
2. Click the 'Get Ads' option the the top menu > Tick 'AdSense For Search' and continue.
3. AdSense walk you through the steps of creating the Search Bar:
- In the third page you will see the 'Opening of search results page' section > Choose 'Open Results In My Own Site.
- Below this is 'Enter URL where search results will be displayed' > Enter the URL of the page you created above and just leave the width at 800px then scroll down.
- You will be asked to choose the style of the search results page > I have set up the page to work with the default pallet so leave this and move on.
- The next page requires you to accept the AdSense Terms and name your search bar (The name of the bar is only to help locate it in your AdSense account and is not important).Click 'Submit and get Code'.
- Usually you would now be presented with one snippet of code for the search bar this time you will get two.The first snippet is for the search bar and the second is for the search results page.Save both pieces of code or keep the page open as you will need both later.
OK back to your Blogger Dashboard (
Are you keeping up)
Add The Search Page Code To Your TemplateStep 1. In your dashboard click 'Design' > 'Edit Html'
Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html :
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code -
More Info)
</body>
Step 3. Copy and paste the following code Directly Below / Under </body>
</b:if >
Step 4. Don't save you template we have the final step to complete - Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html :
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code -
More Info)
</head>
Step 5. Replace </head> with the code below :
<!--search page code by www.spiceupyourblog.com-->
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "URL-OF-YOUR-PAGE"'>
<style>
body{
margin:0;
padding:0;
background:#ffffff;
font:70% Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color:#555;
line-height:150%;
text-align:left;
}
#container{
margin:20px auto;
width:850px;
background:#fff;
padding-bottom:20px;
border-left:1px solid #bebebe;
border-right:1px solid #bebebe;
}
#content{
margin:0 20px;
}
h1 {
background:none repeat scroll 0 0 #DDDDDD;
font-family:sans-serif;
font-size:27px;
font-style:italic;
font-weight:lighter;
text-align:center;
text-shadow:1px 0 0 #FFFFFF;
margin:0px;
}
p{
margin-bottom:18px;
font-style:italic;
font-family:Georgia, Times, serif;
font-size:24px;
color:#bfe1f1;
padding:0;
}
a {
text-decoration:none;
}
ul {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
}
ul li {
border-left:1px solid #000000;
color:#BEBEBE;
font-family:Arial;
font-size:13px;
font-style:italic;
list-style:decimal inside url("https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvsbNlLLNgOWdyusGj4ZdKT0Zo6AZ7p1WDID9gLOuxNwCqTPYXUCMQEb_1aXoPdnHDNKoFGPgvkWZn4BZpdf3t5_0rTzWZHajxjgmErIu6Sy1CEyC3K4QrZgQZRB0rDJOUoaIV1sH7jhWn/");
margin:0 0 0 15px;
padding:8px 8px 8px 0;
}
li a{
text-decoration:none;
color:#057fac;
display:block;
margin-top:-12px;
padding:0 0 0 30px;
}
li a:hover{
text-decoration:none;
color:#999;
}
</style>
<!--[if IE 6]>
<style>
li a{
display:inline-block;
padding:0 0 0 5px;
margin-top:-10px;
}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</b:if>
</head>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "URL-OF-YOUR-PAGE"'>
<body>
<div id='container'>
<h1>YOUR-BLOGS-TITLE</h1>
<div id='content'>
<table border='0'><tr><td><a href='URL-OF-YOUR-HOME-PAGE'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraNCN_lm4WFXC6ASrH-a1A2Rj5PQFH9x0GjenRuClkcrJ37-hCfffD6VjXz61Ya6Y42V6VKixke2KdaSrTeaxaTt_H7b4o4rWkIgpmHXvZyjiuJsDyW7DIQok3VWzujMSlIxUOsr0HJkB/s1600/ico-home.png'/></a></td><td><a href='URL-OF-YOUR-HOME-PAGE'>Home Page</a></td></tr></table>
<!--REPLACE THIS WITH THE SEARCH RESULTS CODE-->
<a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog"><small>Results Page From
Spice Up Your Blog</small></a>
</div>
</div>
</body>
<b:else/>
<!--end search page code by www.spiceupyourbog.com-->
Important - We now need to add a few things to the code.
1.Where you see URL-OF-YOUR-PAGE( Twice) in red - Replace with the URL of the blank page you created in step 1.
2. Where You See YOUR-BLOGS-TITLE in blue - Replace with the title of your blog (You could also use 'Search Results' etc..)
3. Where you see URL-OF-YOUR-HOME-PAGE (Twice) - Replace with the URL of your blogs home page.
4. Where you see <!--REPLACE THIS WITH THE SEARCH RESULTS CODE--> - Replace with the second section of code provided by Google AdSense.
Add The Search Bar - OK if you took your time and sure all the code is in the right place save your template.Now add the code for the actual search bar you your blog > Just head to your Design page > Add A Gadget > Choose Html/Javascript > Paster in your search bar code and save.
That's it go test out your search bar -
Very Important - While you can test your new search bar
Do Not click the ads on the search results page !
As you have seen by the results page for Spice Up Your Blog you can add lost more customizations to the code.If you need more help drop a comment below.There are a lot of steps involved and it has been a hard tutorial to write but if you take your time I'm sure you will have no problems.
Make sure to check out more
Helpful Posts On AdSense and our post showing you how to use the same styling to create a
Totally Unique Table Of Content Site Map (Check out my Site map from the top menu for a demo).
Drop Your Comments, Views And Questions Below.
This week I got a strange email from AdSense.To give a summery they told me AdSense had been disabled on one of my sites due to copyright infringement.However the site they say they disabled AdSense on was not mine, in fact I had never seen it before ! This lead to me investigating some more and the results were surprising.
Guest Post - Our host is Efoghor Joseph Ezie, In this post he looks at how many Bloggers are struggling to monetize their blogs and provides some tips to help.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.
A few weeks ago i told you how i managed to get my mistakenly closed AdSense account reopened.In that post i mentioned how, ironic as it seemed at the time while my AdSense account was closed i received a booklet from Google AdSense with some tips to increase earnings.The booklet had some general tips and some specific tips for Spice Up Your Blog.I know AdSense don't send these booklets to everyone so in this post i will share the tips AdSense gave.Apart from the tips specifically for my sites there was 7 general tips that i think can help everyone make more money with AdSense.
Over the last few years there has been a bit of a mini war between the top bookmarking widget services.Sites like Share This, Add This, Add To Any And more have been fighting for the top spot among users (Did you know the Add This Bookmark page is one of the few online with a Google Page Rank of 10/10).In my opinion over the last year Share This has been coming out on top.In The next few posts i will be showing you why with tutorials on their new Oath Bookmark buttons, Fixed Share widget with integrated AdSense and in this post the very cool toolbar also with optional integrated AdSense.
On Saturday last (30/04/11) i clicked the AdSense icon in my bookmarks toolbar as i do most days to see how my ads were performing (Don't you find checking your blogs stats and AdSense addictive?).This time however instead of going to my AdSense homepage or dashboard i was presented with a strange update or apply to AdSense type page.I say update / apply page because i couldn't really figure out what the page was or what information it was looking for.This started a chain of events which seen my account vanish, all my ads vanish and possibly all my unpaid earnings vanish.
AdSense revenue sharing websites are popping up all over the place right now, it seems to be the current Hot trend.Many of the AdSense revenue sharing sites are article submission and Bookmarking sites, basically you sign up and add unique Articles to a site like InfoBarrel or Bookmark your blog posts on 'Digg Type' sites like SheToldMe.These sites publish your content, place AdSense on the pages and share the AdSense revenue with you.This can be a Great help in your efforts to Build those Vital Back links to your blog and making a few AdSense dollars is a nice extra.
Back in September i told you how i had been Bookmarking my blogs on Xomba and not only getting Free back links but also earning AdSense revenue.Today i have another great tip for Building easy back links to your blog and once again you earn extra AdSense revenue in the process.This time the site we are looking at is Best Reviewer a brand new website that lets you create 'Tops Lists', put links to your blog in the lists and shares the Revenue from the AdSense with you.In fact you get 100% from the main AdSense unit (Directly under the title) and you also choose what size you want that unit to be.
