Google announced today that it has a new version of the Custom Search element, the HTML markup that lets you add rich search functionality to various pages of your site via Google Custom Search Engine.
“The Custom Search element renders a search experience (search boxes and results pages) on your site’s pages,” explains Google software engineer Ying Huang. “By controlling the placement of the Custom Search element on your pages and configuring your CSE settings, you can create customized layouts that are tuned for the look-and-feel of your website.”
The search user interface with the new version renders based on the settings stored on the Google Custom Search Engine servers, and users will no longer have to copy and paste new element code into their sites when they modify their CSE from the control panel.
The new version is supposed to reduce page load times, which could have a small affect on your page’s actual rankings in Google. All element code is loaded asynchronously.
“Client-side customization allows you to overwrite global CSE settings on a per-page basis,” says Huang of the new version. “For example, you can enable search history, disable auto search on page load, configure different Google Analytics parameters, and more. Customization is done through an easy-to-use HTML syntax which does not require any Javascript knowledge.”
Google says it will continue to support older versions of the Custom Search element, for now.