By now you probably have noticed that I’ve dropped Lijit as my Custom Search provider and have jumped on the Google bandwagon for my search needs.
It’s been an interesting transition of sorts but here are some of the reasons I switched:
- Performance was bad. There were a couple hiccups here and there and the load time was not acceptable. The javascript overhead wasn’t too hot either. Additional CSS calls were not my favorite thing either.
- Results were poor. Perhaps they are working on their algorithms and/or distribution through filters, but I just didn’t feel that the results were very good.
- Customization was limited. And I didn’t like the little “Powered by Lijit” icon. Yes, you could get rid of it, but, not without hacking code.
Search is all about one thing: Quality of Results. I felt like I wasn’t getting them, and that means that my users and visitors weren’t either.
One thing I might add to the favor of Lijit is that their customer service is stellar. They dropped me a line the moment I stopped using it, asked for feedback, and was very genuine with their concern. Good stuff there.
The few bad things that I don’t like about Google Custom Search is that I have some random ads on there sometimes. I’m counting on “banner blindness” for my visitors and to bank on the better returns.
Ultimately, I’m simply not comfortable with “leaving well enough alone.” I’ll change the search out if it begins to show signs of suckiness without a moments hesitation.
Have you used the search on ChurchCrunch yet? What do you think?
P.U.B., Publishers Union of Bloggers, have a solvency watch on Lijit pending release of its guidance moving forward, requested several months ago by P.U.B.
If you use Lijit, have a backup visible or invisible search option running on your blog from either a publicly traded company or an entity transparent with guidance, should Lijit fail.
Thanks for the post,
Barney
P.U.B.
uh.. thanks?
I am not sure if it will work with my blog, but I could always give it a try. How do I find the code?
http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
was just going to ask this…
i use search every couple of weeks here on tha crunch…
I'm a big fan of Google Custom Search. It has a bunch of useful applications. In fact, I built a little project using Google Custom Search, an excel spreadsheet of the entire Bible, and a little database jazz. It's called StartRight.org and I just finished it last week. Here's a description of what it is and does, etc. (http://startright.org/why.php)
It's meant to be a simple replacement for other universal homepages like google.com or yahoo.com. It's obviously not the power-homepage that iGoogle or Pageflakes is, but it's not trying to replace those uber start pages. I'd love your feedback on it.
wow, i dig that!
that's nuts…wow…
Yeah… but I didn't find what I was looking for. Perhaps that's why you asked me if I wanted to do a guest post?
(Not ignoring your direct message, just haven't taken the time to research what I need to write the post. So, I guess, that's a "Yes" in answer to your question.)