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I need help with my Google Custom Search Engine and I will pay (via PayPal, name your price, not too much you silly),
if you come up with a solution. You can either PM or reply here.
So...
People can search my site using cse.
I'm linking to some search queries, which is quite easy... something like: mydomain.com/search.html?q=kitty (searches for kitty).
But how do I link from the search page (to what URL?) so that a search query is added to the existing one?
For example, a girl has searched for cute kittens. How to add the word fluffy to the search query by clicking a fluffy link?
(resulting in the search query cute kittens fluffy, without actually typing anything additional)

The following page has some info on this.
http://www.google.com/cse/docs/resultsxml.html
I think it suggests to add this:
&as_q=fluffy
to the URL. But the question remains: How to add something to the URL?

To those familiar with Refinements: I am already using them (only 16 refinements allowed, not enough for me).

Hi,

I'm not 100% completely sure what you want, but I think I do. You are looking to have something come from Google that includes the query, and then to use that in your page, either for gathering statistics, or for presenting custom page material to the user. This is quite easy to accomplish using PHP and a few tools...

I can discuss this with you, and present a solution for my standard fees. Contact me through my website (below) if you are interested.

_________________
-Brett...





XSitePro Templates - $297 | XSitePro Membership Sites, XSitePro Shopping Carts, XSitePro Scripts Integration

Here's the simplest explanation of what I need...
You know anchors in XSP, those things that you can link to using # in front of the name.
(For example, first you create the anchor (name it test) to a place where you want to link to. Then highlight some text... right click... insert link... other... in the url field you type #test and now you have a working system, which enables you to add #test to the URL (in the address bar). I want that kind of solution, but without the #).

Edit (a couple of hours later): "?" seems to work, but doesn't look pretty in the search box.
Well, if no one comes up with a better solution, I'll stick to linking with ? at the beginning of the link (for example, linking to ?fluffy).

Hi,



The reason the "?" is there is to qualify the content coming on the query string, you cannot change that - HOWEVER, you can use tracking software that will let you make it look like you are linking to folders on your website, such as: http://www.mywebsite.com/fluffy and then those redirect to the actual link you are wanting.

You also get tracking for those in great detail. I use and recommend AdTrackz for that, I've used it for years, pick up your copy at:
http://www.adtrackz.com
(please do not let the 2008 date in the header scare you, I've used that software for years to track $1,000's of dollars of clicks)

You can see all the tracking tools I recommend at:
http://www.xsiteprotemplatesite.com/XSitePro-Analytics-Tracking.html

_________________
-Brett...





XSitePro Templates - $297 | XSitePro Membership Sites, XSitePro Shopping Carts, XSitePro Scripts Integration

Thanks, Brett.
Actually I'm not looking for a tracking method.
Instead I have a Custom Search Engine powered by Google via my AdSense account.
The ? seems to work good, but what I don't like is that it appears in the search box after the query.
For example, I make a search for cute kittens and then refine it by clicking the sneaky ?fluffy link resulting in cute kittens?fluffy in the search box (with the actual search results (pages containing all three words) below of course).

Edit (the next day): Nope. Just realized the ? trick works only once. Like you press ?fluffy you go to url?fluffy. But now you want to add another search term, let's say fat. ?fat goes to url?fat (not url?fluffy?fat). So I'm still looking for a solution.

Edit (another day later): Turned out I can add more refinements (the feature was not available from the control panel, but found out how to do it). Well, at least I get more refinements, but still would have been cool for the visitors to be able to add queries just by clicking on my predefined words. (With refinements, the refinement query changes, in other words only one refinement/additional query can be active at any time. I think I'll offer the visitors the option to use both my sneaky ?fluffies and refinements (in addition to the original search query of course).

Hi Boastman,

The ? extension at the end of a URL is used when you want to pass some data from one web page to another one.

For example I did this search in Google:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=html+g ... =firefox-a

As you see this This sends specific variables ( q, ie, oe, aq, rls, client) to the called web page along with the data for those variables
ie:
q=q=html+get+method
ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
oe=utf-8
aq=t
rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
client=firefox-a


I would expect that on the landing page there will be a Java-script or PHP script that will read this data and do something useful with it.


This data that is passes from page to page is usually created using a Java-script form:
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_form.asp


XSitePro has a simple from tool built in.
We have a video on forms that may help you here:
http://www.xsitepro.com/forms-wizard-vi ... tware.html

.. and you can find the manual section on this here:
http://www.xsitepro.com/help/forms_wiza ... design.htm


Is this what you are looking for?

I'll look out for your reply.
Ben

_________________
Ben Fleeson
Empowering individuals to be financially independent.
http://xsiteprosupport.com/

Javascript sounds better than PHP (I seem to have some limiting beliefs about using PHP on my html pages, lol).
So I guess I need a method to get the URL of the landing page (the page where they land after making a query/search), and then add fluffy to that via fluffy link.
Like I said, I already can do this with just fluffy by using "?", but if they want to do another search, I need to add fat, too.

If someone wants to try making this work, either PM or reply here. I'm using the two page search element of Google's CSE. The first code is in my main panel header, and the second one is on the search.html page, which has no main panel header to prevent from showing two search boxes.

I'll pay via PayPal for every valid suggestion, but not too much, ok. Also feel free to suggest a better place to ask these kind of questions (questions not related to XSP) or send me to someone who understands these things.

Edit: If it makes any difference, my CSE is using all the added things, like promotions, autocompletions and refinements (if you need the code, just ask). Additionally my language has a few letters that are not english. I think the coding is UTF-8.
Of course I could go ahead and upgrade to Google's Site Search, but then again, I don't know whether it differs from CSE at all (other than having email support).

Hi,



You should re-consider that comment. PHP is often more robust then javascript and will provide you with more flexibility. Actually combining the two may be what you need.



Sorry, but I require payment before I work on anything... I've got too many paying clients to do work without payment. Good luck to you in finding someone.

_________________
-Brett...





XSitePro Templates - $297 | XSitePro Membership Sites, XSitePro Shopping Carts, XSitePro Scripts Integration

Sorry to hear you are out of the thread, Brett.

To quote myself:

I'll pay in advance to all reliable forum members.

Just send me your PayPal email address so that I can donate to you.

If you happen to read this thread a month later or even next year, I'm still looking for a solution.
(When I find an answer, I'll return here and update this thread.)

Edit (15.2.2012): A while back I updated to GSS, but I think the email support is only for emergency situations (like broken GSS).
Well... I don't think I'll be needing this feature anyway. The visitors can just type their searches.

Hi,



That's part of the reason people pay to have a solution... it's done fairly quickly (as in days) and not months later. Best of luck to you in getting it working.

_________________
-Brett...





XSitePro Templates - $297 | XSitePro Membership Sites, XSitePro Shopping Carts, XSitePro Scripts Integration