An easy way to add new features to Google
Have you ever wanted to add a new feature to Google’s search results? There’s a really nice way to do it right now. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, it’s called a Subscribed Link, and it lets you “create custom search results that users can add to their Google search pages. You can display links to your services for your customers, provide news and status information updated in near-real-time, answer questions, calculate useful quantities, and more.” That page has a whole list of different ways to add new features to Google’s search results:
* Create search results specific to your product, service, or expertise.
* Design a basic version in minutes to see how it works.
* Build a dynamic version using XML, TSV, or RSS files or feeds.
* Include images in your Subscribed Links.
* Include Google Gadgets in your Subscribed Links.
* Test your Subscribed Links interactively and get debugging messages.
* Define query patterns using lists of keywords or regular expressions.
* Invoke the calculator to help construct your results.
I like that Google provides an open system to add functionality to our search results. If this sounds interesting to you, check out this blog post by Google OS (an unofficial blog), read through the subscribed links developer guide, or check out the Subscribed link FAQ.
Let’s walk through an example. I often need to know what my IP address is. Usually I go to Google, search for [ip address], and click on one of the top results. That works okay, but I discovered that there’s an even easier way. Go to this page and click on the “Subscribe” button.
Now when you go to Google and type a query like [my ip], you’ll see the answer right in your search results, like this:
I painted out my actual IP address, but you get the idea. Now if only aruljohn.com would add the query [ip address] to the list of queries that triggers a subscribed link, that will let me be lazy and continue doing the query that I’m used to. 
If you’d like to add some new functionality to Google, why not try it for yourself today? I made a simple subscribed link that looks like this:
in about a minute. It looks like you can make a subscribed link out of feeds very quickly. It looks like you can even add your own flexible gadget to Google’s search results, and it looks like this:
By the way, I originally wrote this post a little while ago focusing on how to find out your IP address with a specific subscribed link. After Yahoo announced their “SearchMonkey” project tonight (congrats to the Yahoo folks!), I figured I’d add in some details about Google’s Subscribed Links and how to make a rich snippet result using Subscribed Links.
rob Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Matt I blogged on something related to this last night, is this connected? Should these be appearing SERPs or should it be a logged in thing?
Check out “distance from paris to london” in google.co.uk, result number 4…
SearcH◆ EngineS WEB Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
Now THIS is the type of post that made this blog popular.
Hopefully, there will be more of this type.
Definitely a Digg homepager
Matt Cutts Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
I didn’t think it was *that* great, SEW. But thanks.
Dan Schulz Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
Matt, what you think is great and what your users think is great are sometimes two completely different things. And I do have to agree with SEW here - this is a great post.
I’ll definatley be checking this out for myself later on. Thanks for the heads up.
Harith Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 11:44 pm
SEW
“Now THIS is the type of post that made this blog popular.”
Wrong again, SEW.
Kitty posts made this blog popular
Michael VanDeMar Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 12:00 am
SEW - you have some sort of … smudge… on your nose there… right on the tip… might want to grab a tissue…
This is a kewl feature, I do agree with that.
Matt, did you happen to get the email I sent yesterday, btw?
TOMHTML Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 12:31 am
Sadly, there is no way to interface a regex-like query with a dynamic Co-op module.
Example: I’d like to search for “209.85.238.11″ and get the resolution of this IP, just as you do with your own IP in the first example. But at first sight, I can’t :-/
Dean Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 12:34 am
After clicking Subscribe my Firefox crashed with a message of unresponsive script - thanks for that Google.
Craig Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 2:39 am
Very interesting,
What kind of functionality does Google plan to extend this too. Will we have webmaster tools support for example? Would eb nice to see how many people have subscribed.
Emmanuel Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 4:52 am
Hi Matt,
This is cool stuff! I gonna play with it very soon
There is an error when I click on the link from your post Go to this page and click on the “Subscribe” button. It says “We’re sorry. The service you requested is currently unavailable. “
g1smd Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 4:59 am
There’s some seriously odd results in that [My IP] SERP…
Sexy Girls Moaning Your IP Address!
Text IS Boring… Have Our Hotties Moan Your IP Address!
I am guessing that result is NSFW… sheesh.
Dito Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 5:51 am
Matt,
Thanks for this tidbit.
I can see this being very useful for my clients. For example, they always need help syncing their google apps emails to outlook and I always point them to the same website to follow me along. I could have them subscribe to a link pointing to that page when they search ‘outlook setup’ or something of the like.
Will it always show in the 4th position?
Thanks,
Jim McNelis
Dito Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 5:56 am
Just read FAQs and confirmed 4th position placement.
Danny Sullivan Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 5:59 am
Matt, updated our post on the Yahoo program:
http://searchengineland.com/080226-000100.php
Addressed what you raise, that Google already has this. But the key difference is that it’s going to be on by default for many publishers — the user won’t have to choose.
Subscribed links seem to remain largely unknown by publishers and users. Moving to default inclusion might give Yahoo more pick-up with its program, though there’s still a lot to see going forward.
Philipp Lenssen Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 7:19 am
> But the key difference is that it’s going to be on
> by default for many publishers
Google Health results as part of Google Co-op are also on by default…
Visual Realm Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 7:20 am
Yeah this is a very good tool that can be used by many. Thanks Matt.
Matt Cutts Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 8:00 am
Good points, Danny and Philipp. I want to be clear that personally I liked Yahoo’s idea. The fundamental tension is that if you hit the user with rich results from a bunch of websites, it might overwhelm the user, distract them, or slow them down. Yahoo’s example added several images just for one search result, and if every website had a rich display, you could be talking about 30-50 extra images that have to load on every page. So Google does turn on some Co-op links by default (e.g. the Health links as Philipp pointed out), but the tradeoff between what a website owner wants to show and what a user wants to see is always an interesting choice.
g1smd, you can also type queries like whoami. The nice thing about a subscribed link is that the creator can choose the queries that trigger the rich result.
Errioxa Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 8:09 am
But, If the users can view the information on result page… they don’t enter into ours sites.
Manuel Lemos Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
Matt,
Is this post a reaction to the Yahoo announcement that they will allow 3rd parties customize search results presentation?
http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000523.html
Personally I do not see much interest in customizing the presentation of the results of search pages other than pages of my own sites.
Also I do need much people being interested to customize the presentation of search results of other sites, first because it is not a trivial thing for the vast majority of the users, and second because such customization would not really solve essential needs of most users.
What I think it would be useful is that Google would allow us site owners customize the presentation of results of results of our own sites to the users, so we can make our sites more appealing to users searching for stuff available in our sites.
I have not studied that in detail, but that seems to be the proposal of Yahoo. If I got that right, I am sure every site owner will be interested in ways to customize the presentation of results of our sites to the search engine users.
I wonder if you can clarify if Google allows any other level of results presentation customization, other than the page description meta tags that may appear in SERPS.
youfoundjake Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
Well, as a result of this post, I went ahead and set up a Subscribed Link.
Unfortunately, it’s not in the main directory, which wil be really cool, but ehhh, I had fun setting it up on a Wordpress Blog.
John Nagle Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
That’s a cute feature.
CustomizeGoogle has been doing something similar for some time now. There are Greasemonkey scripts that work on Google search results. There’s plenty of client side potential in this area.
Technically, this is easy. The design challenge is to do it without cluttering the output.
Dave (original) Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Matt, I’ve been using coop and subscribed links for our site for nearly a Year now. It now brings us a few 1000 more unique visits per week for terms that we cannot get page 1 for in the Google SERPS. Very cool and intuitive.
Harith Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
Matt,
Btw, a friendly reminder. Last cat post was for around 3 months ago
For those of us who work each and everyday on SEO and have GOOG as a start page the whole day, kitty posts are refreshing indeed.
Sourav Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 4:23 am
I think this is going to be cool…..I am really looking forward to lay my hands on it……
Sergey Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 5:14 am
Very interesting approach to personalize search
cjazz Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 5:48 am
Hi Matt,
I can think of some instances for clients when this will come in really handy. So people can subscribe to more than one subcribed link! That would be great for the family also!
Thanks again for keeping us updated.
DB.
Brian Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 7:10 am
lol at myip.dk. They need some SEO for their SERP results. Besides, if you bookmark their site and you have a dynamic IP you’ll probably be misled by the old IP in the title.
Jaan Kanellis Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 8:36 am
For Subscribe link to work properly dont you have to be signed into a Google Account? How many average Joe’s use a Google account? Isnt this technology just for us SEM’s trapped in a Google Accounts bubble?
The Yahoo idea is cool to, but how do they regulate the SPAM they will receive?
netmeg Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 8:53 am
Hmm, I think this might be of great use on my fireworks site; there’s boatloads of searches for it in the summer. But I’m not sure I understand how it works just yet..
EGOL Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Matt,
I really like this idea. Perhaps this could be paired with some type of website membership and develop into a social network clustered around individual websites.
For example, if a person clicks on my RSS button or on my feedburner email subscribe link, he might be presented with a list of google sponsored features which could include….
Feedburner RSS
Feedburner email
gadgets
custom search
subscribed links
share my bookmarks
site targeted adwords
All of these things are great and contribute to the success of my website. I think that google could help individual websites launch their own communities by inventing a way to bundle these by domain.
Photos Djerba Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
Subscribed Links are really useful for community projects !
So I think when researchers, stuents or artists… working on the same project. Will enjoy being guided through some exceptional keywords.
Google take the originality of this option! I think when this task would be more popular and Googlers will enrich it.
We could profit from these subscribed links in order to perform more pertinent search results, based on subscriptions popularity
Brick Marketing Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Wow. That is simply great! It seems that every single day, we find new tools/tips through Google that can be used to make life easier. This is certainly Digg material and Favorites material. You never cease to provide awesome info. Thanks!
Brian White Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Harith,
Add http://www.cuteoverload.com/ to your feed reader.
Bruce Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
I love seeing the kitty posts, but this post is great! Maybe the only way you could have done better is by somehow working a kitty pic into the search results.
Harith Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
Brian White,
Thanks for the resource. Very cute
Bruce,
Just like you, I like Matt’s kitty posts too. Very relaxing.
WaveShoppe Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 9:39 am
@ Dave (original), I have a few questions about coop and subscribed links. Would you possibly mind dropping me an email and allocating a few minutes of your time so I can ask you some questions?
Charles
mark Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Nice feature Matt!
Xianhong Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
Thank you, Matt, i will check out the Subscribed Links, and make some testing
Matthew Anderson Said,
February 29, 2008 @ 11:58 am
That’s great Matt - I read in-between the lines and got it all completely. You’re doing some kinda Black Sabbath voodoo on us.
Hidden message was - Page Rank is being updated on the 29th of Feb.
Cheers for the heads up!
; - )
Matt
Ze Fonseca Said,
February 29, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
Hi Matt, there is a syntax error on Javascript code being distributed for the CSE. You can replicate the error both on Firefox and IE. Did not test elsewhere.
The most searched for “cloud” does not work.
Error: syntax error
Source File: http://www.google.com/coop/api/…REMOVEDIDFROMHERE…./cse/6ffhc-esckg/queries/js?callback=(new+PopularQueryRenderer(document.getElementById(%22queries_…REMOVEDID……%3A6ffhc-esckg%22))).render
Line: 2, Column: 50
Source Code:
(new PopularQueryRenderer(document.getElementById("queries_006045580447401555140:6ffhc-esckg"))).render({
Henri Said,
March 1, 2008 @ 9:27 am
Hmm, it’s funyy, but I don’t need that service. I use Google for searching only. Some times, I use it as calculator of translator.
Jim In Summit NJ Said,
March 1, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
This is very cool stuff Matt. I like how google is paying attention to its users. Is it any wonder why more than 70% of the people seem to be using Google over the other search engines.
Florin Said,
March 2, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
This is usefull Matt, but not for me, i’m the kind of user that likes simple things that work fine, i like simplicity of Google and will use it with pleasure as long as it stays that way, when things get complicated , people like me who like simple things get scarred
WaveShoppe Said,
March 2, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
Matt, do you have an idea of how many users have actually adopted using the Google ToolBar? 1 million, 5 million etc
An issue people may encounter is with a user that has no toolbar installed. If they click a button to add a subscribed link they will be sent to Google to install the tool bar (if not installed), the problem is that goog whisks the user away to do an installation, afterwards the users have to somehow figure out how to get back to subscribed link button a second time.
Charles
velix Said,
March 2, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
This in unbelievable, I never bookmark any sites but in most cases when I look for some new features to test it I came to your blog by google search… What to say, it seems that you are really follow all new stuff. Just great stuff for lazy people like me.
Dave (original) Said,
March 2, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
Like, most Google features, that is who the new feature is for.
Abhishek Rungta Said,
March 2, 2008 @ 11:52 pm
Hello Matt,
I appreciate the way Google has opened up search for users to contribute. But to be frank, I do not see these contributions reaching the search results. Most of these search results will only make an impact in improving the overall experience of a web user when they are classified in themes and these themes are offered to clarify the intent of the search and deliver the results the visitor has been looking for.
Abhishek
Himanshu Said,
March 6, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
Thats the awesome feature you have specified. I wish this can happen on Google SERP without people subscribing to my link.
ecseo Said,
March 7, 2008 @ 2:43 am
Seems like this is a great idea for community and client based projects, like Abhishek I’m not sure if subscribed links would improve the SERPs though.
Anonymous Said,
March 7, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
I’m checking me IP to make sure i’m not surfing “naked”. Not going to do searches logged in any time soon.
If I search for 10 eur in usd, time in ny, and such, Google does the math. Why not for the IP? Presumably the user that searches for “my ip” wants to know his ip and user-agent.
Seb Said,
March 8, 2008 @ 7:27 am
I was playing with Google calendar the other day. I tried unsuccessfully to import gig dates from our website by getting the website to export the dates as ical file.
The problem I found as a band, that their are far too may websites were we can manually enter all our gig dates in to, and not offering any kind of import tool. It would be really cool for Google calendar to be the generic source of every type of event.
Google could retrieve the latest dates from our website via RSS and allow other websites to read the calendar.
Any possibilities?
dating Said,
March 9, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
Very very helpful information..