WiscWeb - WordPress UW Theme - Adding a Google Custom Search Engine to Your Site

WiscWeb sites have the ability to add Google Custom Search Engine functions to their site to supplement the native WordPress search technology. This document will walk you through the process of creating a Custom Google Search Engine account and adding it to your site.

Please Note

  • Google Custom Search Engine is also known as Google's Programmable Search Engine
  • Google will only add results for a page that has already been indexed by their search engine.  If you are not seeing a page show up in your results, please consider reviewing and implementing the steps outlined in WiscWeb - WordPress UW Theme - Request Google to Recrawl Your Site or Page.

In this document:

Overview

Google Custom Search Engine allows you to provide your users with more robust search capabilities. The native WordPress search that comes standard with WiscWeb sites only really searches for keywords in your pages and posts and sometimes fails at finding the relevant results. The Google Custom Search provides more accurate searches and includes content from things like PDFs and custom post types (like Fac/Staff content).

Here are a few examples of what you can do with this tool:

Please note that support of this tool is limited within the Google and WiscWeb teams at DoIT.

For a full list of Google Custom Search Engine's abilities, please see the related Google documentation.

Steps

Step 1: Requesting a Google Custom Search account

To request an account, please first fill out the Google Custom Search Request Form.
Note: You may need to access this form from a private browsing window

Within a few days of submission of this form, you will be contacted by the DoIT Google Apps team with information on your new Google Custom Search account. This email should include your new search engine ID.

Step 2: Adding the search engine ID to your WiscWeb project

  1. Log into your WordPress site dashboard, hover your mouse over the Appearance menu on the left and choose Customize.

    Appearance Customize Menu

  2. In the left menu, select Search Options. 
  3. In the next screen, check the box for "Use search on this site." 
  4. Once you have that selected, you can then enter your Search Engine ID value in the field, and click Save & Publish

    Search Options Screen

Removal of Ads

Google Custom Search requests are typically handled within 1-2 business days and the option to disable ads is completed 3 business days after the account is created. The DoIT Google Apps team will notify you when the account is ready. 

See Also: