I've seen a lot of small websites that utilize the google search bar. I don't really get why they do this. Assuming you want to make money with adsense, the search bar will hurt you more than anything else. To make money with adsense you need people to click your placements, with a small website and a search bar you are almost suggesting they search for something else and leave the website. If anything you should replace the search bar with a referral for Firefox, if you aren't going to make a click with your adsense placements you might get lucky and find someone who wants Firefox.
Hmm.. that's certainly something to think about. I get a fair few hits with the searchbar, but hardly any money. I guess it would be indeed better to remove them.
I used to consider google search bar a waste of space, but lately I've started getting some clicks from it and each of them is >$1.
It really depends on your site content and the ads that are served from the resulting search query... it also helps when your site is fully indexed in the main site so your users may actually benefit from it and return!!!. The main advantage of the search is not the monetary value it gives (or doesn't give in most cases), but the *information* that you can then use. How is search beneficial? Simple answer, it tells you what your visitors are looking or expecting to find - consequently you can then add to your site and deliver a better, more informative and overall more useful customer experience that will bring you higher levels of repeat traffic.
yes the search bar encourage user to leave your site when the do a search but i still leave it on mys site as you can get lucky and get a click.
Nice thread... I was considering thr pros and cons of putting a google search onto my site. After reading this thread I will give it a miss! Thanks guys!
The main consideration people have as to whether they should put the google search on their website, is whether their website is fully indexed in the main results. If a website is only in the supplmental index, then it will make for a poor visitor experience when they use the site search option... and may result in that visitor blanking the site completely in future. After all, would you visit a site that returned no results in a site search for a common word?
I sometimes get much higher paying clicks from the search queries since many advertisers don't run adwords directly on sites, only searches.
Well, with the new "show search results on my page" option in Adsense for search, this isn't such a big problem, depending of course on how your visitors react. From my experience people will be much more likely to open sites linked in the search results in new windows/tabs. That means they still remain on your page. If your site offers something better than the rest they'll visit for a longer period. Also, my main reason for using the search feature is to allow people to search my own site for content, making it easier for them to find what they are looking for.