Google launched its Custom Search Engine (CSE) in late 2006. It has gone through various changes and feature upgrades since that time and Google just announced that what it was calling CSE “Business Edition” has now been renamed “Google Site Search.” There are several new features that offer increased customization to site owners implementing the tool.

Those new features include look and feel customization, deeper crawling, the ability to upload specialized synonym dictionaries, “date biasing” (recent results can be more heavily weighted), and “Top Results Biasing.”

Google explains the latter category in the following way: “Google Site Search allows you to target the top search results from specific sections of your website (such as your product catalog).” Site owners can thus promote specific types of results in top positions. This can be used simply to highlight content or as a promotional vehicle (read: advertising).

Site search is also ad free. However, those that want them can get AdSense with their custom search results. Pricing depends on the number of pages indexed.

Related Topics: Google: Custom Search Engine

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling