Good question but I would be careful because of the following quote from the terms & conditions. My question would be what is Google's definition of end user? I know I would define it as your visitors and not you the account holder. I couldnt see using the search as being a problem as long as you dont click the adsense on the results as Riboflavin & Tony had said but I would really question Google's wording from the above. Personally I don’t use the search on my own site and when I need to check if its working ok I use the term "test" just so Google knows that’s what I am doing. Did you throw this question at Google? I wouldn’t mind knowing their view.
I actually emailed google about this yesterday - still awaiting a reply. I love the search feature and I'd love to be able to use it (not clicking on ads, of course).
I think it means users need to physically enter their search queries into the search box, not just click on a link with the query in the URL. Allowing the users to search for what they want rather than telling them what to search for.
Keep us posted Sara on their reply. FeedBucket yeah I see what your saying but my biggest concern is how the view an 'end user'.
OK, here's the reply. Typical Google-ese, but it appears OK to use the "search your own site function" provided you do not click the ads. __________________________________________________ Hello Sara, Thank you for your email. We strongly recommend that you do not use the AdSense for search box on your site to perform searches yourself across the web. Besides increasing the risk of accidental clicks on your own ads, searching through AdSense for search will result in reports that do not properly reflect the traffic to your pages. We suggest that you use Google.co.uk for your searches or, if you are a Windows user running Internet Explorer or Firefox, we recommend the Google Toolbar. The Toolbar allows you to search from within your browser and includes shortcuts to a number of Google services - more information is available at http://toolbar.google.co.uk/ . We do not however have a problem with using our sitesearch functionality providing, obviously, that you do not click through on any ads that may be served. For additional questions, we suggest you visit our AdSense Support site at http://www.google.com/adsense_help . If you're unable to find an answer to your question on our site, please feel free to reply to this email.