If your website contains a catalogue of articles and mul­ti­me­dia content, you should make sure that your users are able to find exactly what they’re looking for, quickly and easily, with no hassle. This means your site’s central features should include an intuitive nav­ig­a­tion menu and an in­tel­li­gent custom search engine function, as this sig­ni­fic­antly increases a website’s usability. There is a multitude of pos­sib­il­it­ies when it comes to in­teg­rat­ing a search bar into your web project. While many website operators use native search functions, which are provided by all major content man­age­ment systems (CMSs), another popular option is im­ple­ment­ing search boxes from leading search engine providers. It’s also possible to create a custom search engine with PHP script, although this is a less popular option.

CMS search bars

Website operators using CMSs such as WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, and TYPO3 can take advantage of the websites’ own full-text search functions. These can usually be activated with just a few clicks, without having to manually insert code or script into the source code. If the CMS doesn’t offer a search bar among its basic features, there are a number of plugins developed by the community that you can use to extend your range of functions instead.

Embedding a custom search engine

If your web presence is not based on a content man­age­ment system, or if you’re simply looking for an al­tern­at­ive to a CMS search bar, you can turn to search engine providers such as Google, Duck­DuckGo and Startpage by ixquick among others. These services provide local search engines for websites in the form of a free search box im­ple­ment­a­tion code. The in­teg­ra­tion process for all search boxes is as follows:

  • Register with a search engine provider (not necessary for all providers)
  • Search box is con­figured on the provider’s website
  • The HTML code snippet can be in­teg­rated into your website’s source code

Your chosen search engine will become available as soon as the web crawler has indexed your online project, including subpages.

Google’s custom search

Google provides a free user-defined search bar that has a limited range of functions. To get the embed code, you first need to register for the service. The search box can be adjusted to fit in with the basic design of your website, however it will still be presented as a Google service. Website operators can also invest in an upgrade, which enables the addition of extra functions such as de­ac­tiv­at­ing adverts in the search engine results pages. This also allows users to com­pletely customise the design of the search bar and delete the Google branding, as well as use of ad­di­tion­al features such as image search, multiple languages, XML feeds, label cat­egor­ies, and on-demand indexing.

StartPage search box

Don’t want to use Google? The Dutch company, Ixquick, provides an al­tern­at­ive to the market leader with its own search bar, StartPage. The greatest advantage of this search engine is that it provides an­onymised Google results. As with Google, it’s possible to integrate a StartPage search box into your own website, although it does allow users sig­ni­fic­antly less cus­tom­isa­tion pos­sib­il­it­ies. Another advantage is that you can generate an embed code for StartPage without having to register with Ixquick. There are also 13 prebuilt templates, which can be adjusted to fit. You can also define whether the results should be opened in the same window, and the page that users should be directed to.

Duck­DuckGo search box

Image: DuckDuckGo search box
Source: https://duck­duckgo.com/search_box

Duck­DuckGo is another search engine provider that avoids col­lect­ing personal user data, and is therefore enjoying in­creas­ing pop­ular­ity within the internet community. As with Google and StartPage, you can easily implement a search bar with an html code. This can be con­figured and taken to use in your own source code without the need to register with Duck­DuckGo. Duck­DuckGo also offers users the pos­sib­il­ity of cus­tom­ising the size, back­ground colour, and the prefill text of the search box.

Create a search bar with your own search script

PHP script is yet another option when it comes to gen­er­at­ing a search engine for your website. Although this solution may indeed grant website operators a large amount of freedom, there is also a far greater margin for error. For example, problems may arise if a script is over­whelmed with an ever-in­creas­ing volume of data, if the web host’s script runtimes are limited, or if the search bar de­velopers stop making new versions. Outdated or poorly pro­grammed PHP scripts can also present a con­sid­er­able security threat. Website operators should therefore use external service providers in order to avoid over­load­ing their websites with a search function and so that it continues running smoothly.

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