Google Custom Search Launches

Google took another step towards internet domination Tuesday, launching a custom search engine that allows users to choose which web pages to search.

Accessed through Google's Co-op site, the Google Custom Search Engine, also allows users to search the entire web but emphasize specific sites, create a search engine that focuses on an individual site or search only specified pages. Other options govern the look of results and how content is prioritized.

The Silicon Valley company, which already carries out half of the world's web searches, said the new product would be free to users. Websites that carried their own custom search engine would be allowed to connect to the company's Adsense advertising system and share the revenue with Google.

Search specialists said that the new offering made sense because traditional Google results were often too varied and carried results from too many sites.

'We want to make it easy for anyone to create a search engine about all of their favourite topics', said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google.