Sometimes you want to search for something, but only within a specific set of sites. For example, Smashing Magazine recently posted a list of 45+ Excellent Code Snippet Resources and Repositories. Occasionally, I find myself opening several tabs to search through a few of my favorite sites from this list in hopes that someone else has already figured out the best way to do something; so I decided to make a custom search engine.
Google provides an easy to use tool for building a “customized search engine” that only searches the sites you specify. Google Custom Search may not receive a lot of hype around the internet, but it is a very simple, yet powerful resource.
To get started, visit http://www.google.com/cse and click “Create a Custom Search Engine.” The form is pretty self-explanitory — just enter the list of sites that you want to search.
Here is the list I created:
snipplr.com/* *.smipple.net/* tipster.carsonified.com/* snipt.net/* snippets.dzone.com/* *.koders.com/* codesnippets.joyent.com/* *.bytemycode.com/ refactormycode.com/* *.naslu.com/* codecodex.com/wiki/* *.jonasjohn.de/snippets/* github.com/* *.codase.com/* *.google.com/codesearch/* *.snipiti.com/* codekeep.net/* snippetsmania.com/* devsnippets.com/* *.refactory.org/* *.code-sucks.com/code/* *.phpsnips.com/* *.phpclasses.org/* wiki.greasespot.net/Code_snippets/* *.stackoverflow.com/*
Once created, there are several more advanced options — annotations, styling, custom logos, etc.
If you want to see what the result looks like, you can see the Code Snippet search engine I created, or jump straight into creating your own and let me know what you come up with.