While fiddling around with Google Custom Search Engine, I wondered: why in the world Google does not provide a comprehensive, topic-based directory of CSE’s (besides a few hand-picked “featured examples“) or -even better- a search interface to find and discover new custom search engines quickly and easily?
Luckily enough, where Google lacks, a few brave hackers come to rescue: on the always up-to-date Google Operating System blog a post titled “Finding Custom Search Engines” (dated February 17, 2007!) explains how to search Google for CSE’s using Google’s own advanced search operators and… Google CSE itself!
Here’s how it’s done:
You just have to add [site:google.com inurl:coop/cse] to your query. For example, you can use [site:google.com inurl:coop/cse css] to find custom search engines for CSS.
Simple. Smart. Beautiful. 
Ionut Alex. Chitu (the blog’s owner) even created CSE Search, “a custom search engine that searches through more than 100,000 custom search engines.” –i.e., a Custom Search Engine of Google Custom Search Engines.
(Should we call that a meta-custom search engine? Or maybe a custom meta-search engine? Oh, nevermind :D).
For those who feel more comfortable browsing through categorised lists of links, there’s even a few specialized directories (found via UC Berkley Library’s tutorial page about meta-search engines):
- Eric Enge’s Guide To Custom Search Engines (CSEs)
- The Directory of Google Custom Search Engines
- CSE Links Directory
And that’s just the beginning: Custom Search Engines and Co-op seem to be hot topics lately (at least since Google started showing search refinements on top of regular SERPs, hehehe…), so I’d expect to see more CSE sites pop up in the next few weeks.
Feel free to add more CSE resources in the comments below.
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