Custom Search Engines (aka: No More Moth)

Much though I like to take the odd swipe at Windows Live Search, especially using the classic Microsoft joke of talking about how I've "Googled Live Searched" for something, I think I've found something that may actually convert me.

It's often useful when you're looking for certain things on the web to specify some advanced parameters, such as certain domains you want to search - or maybe to avoid. Perhaps you always want a keyword included in your search, such as "Guitar Tab" or "C#"

Well, both Windows Live and Google offer this, but it seems in the recent scenario I proposed to the options offered by each, Live was one step ahead. Microsoft blogger 'The Moth' mailed me a complaint as part of a conversation which mostly revolved around us thinking up more and more obscure names (or just plain girls names) for one another. He said:

"I know that too well Bartholomew...

It is really annoying when I search for something and find my blog because I know for sure that it doesn’t have the answer so why do those pesky engines keep serving it to me!"

Well, obviously this wasn't just a user-specific feature, I can imagine millions of people on the web wanting to avoid his blog (just kidding, honest), and so I set up to help these poor peons on their way to clean searching.

First, off, I went to the Google offering nicknamed 'Co-op' (or, 'coop', if you look at the url, which confused me for a short while), sure that those hip guys would have a brilliant solution. I was quite frankly disappointed with the entire thing, especially the fact that you can't ask it to search the entire web, and instead have to specify a list of sites to crawl. I ended up with a search engine that searches http://*.com and http://*.co.uk, but avoids The Moth's blog, which obviously isn't exactly ideal.

Offering 1 - Google Co-Op presents Not Daniel Moth's Blog

Following this, I took a token glance at the Live Search site just so I could legitimately claim that they were missing out, and instead came across the very stylish, very usable feature they call Live Search Macros. This offers full functionality letting you specify any one of a number of parameters from within a very simple and user-friendly interface, and is quite frankly brilliant. I did exactly what I wanted, with no hacking around, in just a few seconds. I was particularly impressed with the 'test your search' function, which compares side-by-side a search with your Macro, and a standard Windows Live Search. To top it all off the Macro's even got a memorable URL, unlike Google's crazy string of random characters.

Offering 2 - Live Search Macros presents No More Moth.

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For those of you who don't hate Daniel's blog as much as he apparently does, I've created another Macro which is going to be infinitely useful for me. I find the best way to express a lot of things is just to show someone a web comic which gets the point across perfectly and also gives a giggle. As such, here's the very first incarnation of...

Ina's Web Comic Search

I timed myself making this - it only took 24 seconds, not bad eh?