Anyone interested in building a Google for backyard habitats?
A Google custom search engine (CSE) uses google technology to search a selected group of sites to return results more closely related to the actual information you're seeking. If you have established a google account, which includes gmail or Google Reader, you can use the same login to set up a CSE. In addition, you can make it a coop effort by allowing others to participate in building it.
So, here's my first effort:
Google Co-op - Custom Search Engine
It searches 17 sites, including NWF, eNature, and other national and local sites related to backyard habitats, native plants, wildlife, etc. Advantages? Use this to search for "mourning doves" and you shouldn't get hunting links in your results. Search for "bears" and not only will you skip the football team, your desired ursine results will not be on page 987 of 988.
Right now, this is in "alpha" - it works, but I set it up and turned it on in about 15 minutes max. I'd like to make it better, and also more widely available.
If you are interested in contributing to the content, comment below or email me via this blog. If you don't want to commit to an ongoing contribution, you can send suggestions of sites to include in the search, blog this post, add a link to the CSE to your blog or webpage, or just use it and give me feedback.
or not - that's feedback, too.
Labels: habitats
3 Comments:
This is the first I've heard of this capability. This is a terrific idea.
What would "contributing" entail?
Wren - thanks for your ongoing efforts to make computers make your life easier! I didn't know about this feature, and it's worth investigating further.
Xris, This is new to me, so I'm somewhat making it up as I go along. Sending me suggestions for websites to include in the searching, doing test searches and letting me know if you get unwanted results (i.e., I have nothing against Arizona's football team, but I don't forsee a need to attract them to my feeders, either), publicizing the CSE by linking to it or embedding the gadget on a web page or blog - all will help make it better. If it grows sufficiently large, I may want to add a co-editor or manager later on.
Wayne, I've seen this used sucessfully by both individuals and groups both large and small, but in my opinion, the better and more useful search engines are build by groups rather than individuals. Hopefully there will be enough interest that we'll be able to build something that's a help for all us habitaters.
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