Category: Google

So I’ve been having trouble getting a new Google Custom Search to look only in a specific directory on my web server, as well as to only look at specific file types.   It seemed like this should have been SO easy…  But, it took me a bit to figure it out.  So here’s the information just in case anyone else needs it.

1. Set up a new search engine, in Google Custom Search.
2. Make sure that you have the root directory in the “Sites” section.  I used “www.mydomain.com”.
3. You can enter refinements, but they only seem to work if the user clicks on them; not what I wanted.
4. Go down to “Get Code” and grab the code block that is created for you.  For me it was this:
   • [code]<div id="cse" style="width: 100%;">Loading</div>
     <script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi" type="text/javascript"></script>
     <script type="text/javascript">
     google.load(‘search’, ‘1’, {language : ‘en’, style : google.loader.themes.MINIMALIST});
     google.setOnLoadCallback(function() {
     var customSearchOptions = {};
     var customSearchControl = new google.search.CustomSearchControl(
     ‘Custom Search ID’, customSearchOptions);
     customSearchControl.setResultSetSize(google.search.Search.FILTERED_CSE_RESULTSET);
     customSearchControl.draw(‘cse’);
     }, true);
     </script>[/code]
5. This will give you the basic search.  In order to add in the site restriction and the filetype restriction I changed it to:
   • [code]<div id="cse" style="width: 100%;">Loading</div>
     <script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi" type="text/javascript"></script>
     <script type="text/javascript">
     google.load(‘search’, ‘1’, {language : ‘en’, style : google.loader.themes.MINIMALIST});
     google.setOnLoadCallback(function(){
     var customSearchOptions ={};
     /* Add Custom Search Option to restrict directory */
     customSearchOptions [google.search.Search.RESTRICT_EXTENDED_ARGS]={"as_sitesearch": "www.myDomain.com/subDirectory1/subDirectory2/"};
     var customSearchControl = new google.search.CustomSearchControl("Custom Search ID", customSearchOptions );
     customSearchControl.setResultSetSize(google.search.Search.FILTERED_CSE_RESULTSET);
     customSearchControl.draw(‘cse’);
     /* Add query addition to restrict filetype */
     customSearchControl.setSearchStartingCallback(
     this,
     function(control, searcher, query) {
     searcher.setQueryAddition("filetype:pdf OR filetype:PDF");
     }
     );
     }, true);
     </script>[/code]

   I hope that helps out anyone else who might be looking for a similar problem…