Google is offering small business Web sites - a service that lets visitors search for information within their sites. The new service marks a middle option between Google's existing Custom Search Engine, a free, ad-supported service, and Google Appliance, a hardware device selling for prices starting around 2,000 dollars.
Customers manages that on themselves, private News channel reported. The free, ad-supported service lets visitors search for information inside a particular Web site but cannot be customised.
The Google Appliance lets companies using the device offer their customers the ability to search both publicly available data and secure data the company wants to remain on its own site but to which it wants to grant its customers access.
Google Custom Search Business Edition requires a three-step sign-up process that takes about 10 minutes and requires the business to embed a bit of code on their home page.
Potential customers include millions of small business sites. For 100 dollars a year, the Google service lets customers within a specific site search up to 5,000 pages within a specific Web site. For 500 dollars, it searches 50,000 pages.