Google Search Boxes on Wordpress blog

[cobwab]

Hi,

How do we put Google search boxes on our Wordpress blog?

[golfer57]

Just get the code from google and paste it where you want it. Probably in the side bar I would think. The search box does not get a lot of hits from my experience and you are wasting your time with it. You are just moving your other stuff farther down the page past the fold, which is not good.
Steve

[Kangaroo Jack]

Steve,

I did try pasting it in the sidebar.php but it screwed up the formatting. I just never got around to finding a solution.

For the moment I'll stick with xhtml/css.

[golfer57]

You just have to resize it a bit. I had it in a couple and it did not make me but a couple of pennies. Not worth it, so I took it out. Everyone will use there browser for the most part in searching. I do, I never use one on a site. Don't know what everybody else does, but that is me.
Steve

[cobwab]

OK, that makes sense. I will forget it for blogs

[bivie]

Actually, I wouldn't just forget about it, cuz it can make some money
from time to time, and sometimes it pays pretty well. And as your
traffic grows, you'll find it being used more often, thus making you
more money.

I wouldn't resize it to fit the side panel (you're right, it's not a good
fit up there). Resizing it would probably break Google TOS.

Here's what you do with it: Put it in your footer.

If they've take the time to scroll down that far, they may not have
found what they're looking for yet. So I put some text like "Don't See
What You're Looking For?" and right underneath that is the Google
search box (above copyright and credits info).

Since you already have a site search at the top of most side panels
in most themes, you could put the default search in the Google box
to be the Web, instead of your site.

Like I said, it's not near the bulk of the money I make with Adsense,
but my sites aren't really high traffic yet, but I'll be the occassional
click for 67 cents or whatever.

It's not really take up any valuable real estate down there, and even
if it only makes a few bucks a month, multiple that by a hundred sites
and it can pay for a lot of your hosting and other tools, and still leave
money left over for a night on the town

[cobwab]

Thanks Bivie,

Putting in the footer is a great idea.

I still have stuff in there left over from the template or theme, tho. Can I get rid of that?

[bivie]

Originally Posted by cobwab

Thanks Bivie,

Putting in the footer is a great idea.

I still have stuff in there left over from the template or theme, tho. Can I get rid of that?

I think Wordpress.org asks that you leave their link there (hey, you
got it free, throw 'em a bone) and usually the designer of the theme
does the same thing (refer to bone theory).

You can organize it so it all looks nice and uncluttered. You don't want
the seach box down so low that it's buried in all that stuff, so give
several page breaks before the copyright/bone info starts