Adding AdSense for Search | Google Power Tools Bible

AdSense for Search is a way to make money when visitors to your site perform Web and site searches from a search box on your site. Begin to create an AdSense for Search box from your AdSense account by clicking the AdSense Setup tab and then clicking the AdSense for search link.

You must first select a search type from these choices:

Google WebSearch
Google WebSearch + SiteSearch

The Google WebSearch presents visitors to your site with a Google Search box where they can do Web searches as they would from the Google main search page. With Google WebSearch + SiteSearch you can provide Web search and site searching of three additional sites that you specify.

After you select Google WebSearch, additional options appear. A sample search box is displayed so you can watch how your configuration changes will appear. You can set the following:

Logo type: This displays the Google logo above the search box or Google Search in the button.
Search button: Choose to have the search button below the search box changing the shape of the box.
Background color: Set the background color to white, black, or gray.
Length of text box: Configure the number of characters displayable in the text box. This does not limit the user to the number of characters that can be typed.

In addition to hosting the search box on your site, you can tailor the results to favor topics related to your site’s content. Select the Site-favored search check box. Set additional configuration items such as your site’s language. Set the language of the search box by selecting a language from the drop-down list.

The configuration setting offers three choices:

Open search results page: This allows you to see your results in the same window, thereby having users navigate away from your Web site.
See the results in a new Google window: This still takes users from your site, but it leaves your site open in the original window.
Open results within my own site: This option is optimal, but takes a little more work.

The steps for setting this up are covered in the next section.

The last configuration option is to set your site’s encoding. Select an encoding type from the list. If you are unsure, the most generic type of encoding is found last in the list, Unicode (UTF-8). Click Continue to proceed to the next page.

On the next wizard page, you are asked to configure how the AdSense search results page will appear. You can configure the following search page items:

Upload your logo, which will appear on the top of the search results page.
Specify where your logo, when clicked, takes the visitor.
Set the color palette to a Google palette, or create one yourself.
Choose the country or territory so that Google can use the correct domain when specifying search results.
Turn SafeSearch on to limit the searcher’s ability to see adult or offensive content. This is particularly important if your site is geared toward children.
Specify a tracking channel so you can better track your results.

Tip

If you want people to use the search box, don’t make it too difficult to find by having it blend in with your site too well.

After you set these configuration settings, click Continue to move on to the next page. Here, you can view the code you need to copy into your Web page at the place you want the search box to appear.

Displaying AdSense search results on your site

Before you can implement AdSense for search so that the results appear on your site, you need to prepare the Web page where visitors who click the ads will see the results.

Create a new Web page on your site where viewers of AdSense for search will view the results. Make note of the URL of this new page because you will need it during the AdSense setup. This new page will be referred to in the setup steps as the “results page,” but you can call it anything you want.

Click the AdSense Setup tab.
Select AdSense for search as the product.
In the first step of the setup, scroll down to More options and click the option button marked Open results within my own site.
Type the URL of the results page you created earlier.
Configure the appearance of your search box and results.
Copy the code found in the text box labeled Your search box code, and paste it into the HTML source of the page where you want the AdSense search box displayed. This is not the results page.
Copy the code found in the text box labeled Your search results code, and paste it into the HTML source of the results page.
Save both of your Web pages.

Tip

People who have hosted both AdSense for content and AdSense for search note that the revenue stream is significantly lower for AdSense for search.