J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

A Multi-Site Google Search Box

I created a custom Google search box that limits its search to 21 selected Excel sites. Right now it's kind of buried, but you can try it out here: Multi-Site Search. There's also a link to it in this site's main Search page.

Currently, it returns results only from these sites:

• andrewsexceltips.com/
• appspro.com
• beyondtechnology.com
• blogs.msdn.com/excel/
• charts.jorgecamoes.com/
• contextures.com/
• cpearson.com/excel/
• excelforum.com/
• exceltips.vitalnews.com/
• exceluser.com/
• excelusergroup.org
• mcgimpsey.com/excel/
• mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/
• oaltd.co.uk/
• peltiertech.com/
• puremis.net/excel/
• rondebruin.nl
• smurfonspreadsheets.wordpress.com/
• spreadsheetpage.com
• tushar-mehta.com/
• tvmcalcs.com/

Almost certainly, I've omitted some good sites -- but I can easily add more.

Please try it, and let me know what you think. The big question, of course: Is this any more useful that doing a general Google search for an Excel topic?

- Reader Comments -

Following are comments in response to this item.
The most recent comment is at the bottom.

1. By GreenBoy. Comment posted 12 August, 2008 1:10am

   John
   
   A great addition - thanks
   
   To answer your question yes this is better than doing a general Google search as it limits the results to pre-selected 'expert' sites.
2. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 12 August, 2008 11:21am

   Yeah, but is that always the best?
   
   You avoid a lot of junk, but you also might miss out on some good information at at 'non-expert' sites. So is that trade-off worth it?
3. By derek. Comment posted 16 August, 2008 5:12am

   I think you should also have:
   
   Andy Pope's "AJP Excel Information"
   
   - http://www.andypope.info/
   
   Kelly O'Day's "Data Analysis and Visualization with Excel, R and Google Tools"
   
   - http://processtrends.com/
4. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 16 August, 2008 9:06am

   Thanks derek. I added both of those sites to the list.
   
   How could I have forgotten Andy's site. That's one of my favorites!
5. By Dick Kusleika. Comment posted 24 August, 2008 3:27pm

   I'd like a custom search where I can exclude sites, rather than include them. For instance, if I do a search and get a hit from a site that makes you pay, I'd like an easy way to exclude that site from future searches.
6. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 24 August, 2008 3:52pm

   That's do-able, Dick. Just create your own custom search box and add sites to exclude. Details here.
7. By Dick Kusleika. Comment posted 25 August, 2008 9:10am

   Oh, that's cool. Now I need to get that custom search into the Firefox search bar. That can't be too hard.
8. By Wendy!. Comment posted 07 December, 2008 11:28am

   I think this is very useful... if nothing else, it makes sure you don't get any answers from About.com!