Good timing Google! Adding search functionality to my site was on my To Do list for this month and Google has just announced a new AdSense for Search feature. It allows website owners to add a search box to their site and potentially earn some pocket money with ads that display with the search results. In the email Google sent me, they had an interesting turn-of-phrase:
"AdSense now offers the ability to monetize web and site search! WebSearch plus AdSense for search combines Google's powerful search with monetized and customizable search results pages. Simply placing the code on any web page that meets our program criteria will generate a WebSearch box, allowing users to search without leaving your site, and providing additional revenue for you."
Monetize?! Eh? Anyway tonight I added Google Search to my blog, in the header bar. I doubt I'll be "monetizing" much out of this, but I did need Search functionality so this is very handy. You can search my weblog or the World Wide Web. Give it a try :-)
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The HTML for the search form is not XHTML and doesn't match your DOCTYPE. I'm guessing that you don't have to use the code Google generates for you and you could tidy it up to be XHTML compatible.
Posted by: Paul | June 18, 2004 10:00 AM
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/001968.php
I noticed exactly the same thing — my site is XHTML 1.1, and their generated code uses capital letters! I couldn't believe it! I can't put it on my page, because I say I validate, and Mozilla wouldn't display it. Outrageous.
I've sent them an email asking (a) can they generate valid XHTML, or (b) are we allowed to rewrite the markup. No answer yet.
I laughed at "monetize" as well.
Posted by: Rich | June 18, 2004 2:59 PM
Oh boy, you're right! In my rush to publish, I forgot to check xhmtl status. I don't think it'll hurt to xhmtl-ize it, besides I've already tweaked the Google code a bit (oops, did I just say that?).
Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 18, 2004 5:22 PM
OK I've now made it validate to xhtml transitional. I still have a little bit of xhtml-izing to do for the topic-mapping url's on my page though...I've put it on my To Do list.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 18, 2004 5:36 PM