Tutorials

Adding search to your site

So you’ve setup a new website and integrated it with Surreal. Your client is thrilled that they can manage their own content so easily. Another happy customer!

But now they want to add a search box to their site. This can be tricky because their site is static. So how can you search a site that isn’t database-driven?

Why not hand that task over to the most popular search engine on the planet?

Using a Custom Search Engine from Google, you can add a search box to just about any site in just moments. Choose from either the basic (free) plan or a more customized (paid) option.

Creating a Custom Search

Start by heading over to the Custom Search page where you’ll be prompted to enter a URL. You can enter the site’s full URL, a subsite, or even an individual page. In most cases, the full URL will be desirable.

Following the on-screen instructions, you’ll want to enter something like this:

www.example-website.net/*

Now, just select your language and hit Create. The next page will give you a snippet of code to paste into your site.

Voila! You’ve just created a Custom Search Engine powered by Google!

Why Google?

Why use Google for your site’s search? For a few reasons:

  1. Easy to setup
  2. Fast, relevant search results
  3. No performance impact on your server
  4. Nothing to maintain
  5. Inexpensive (free if you use basic)
  6. It just works!

Maybe the real question is, why not use Google for your site’s custom search?