I was never satisfied with the default search widget for WordPress. I tried other plugins and such and they didn't do much better. I knew that Google Search did a pretty good job, but I never knew how to make it work decently on my blog. Until today, that is.

Earlier this evening, I spotted an article about Google "AdSense for Search" on eJabs. I used his search button a couple of times to see how his page came up and I told myself I wanted to do it like that. So I followed the link for a "how to" at LiewCF. I tried to follow all the steps but had difficulty at first.

I created the page and everything, as instructed, but could not find an option to specify a different page template. I rooted around in the templates for the default theme and discovered that the theme author left out the line for the template name. My page template was not named, so that option didn't even come up in the editor. I added the line and then the editor gave me the option. After that, it was nothing more than adjusting the width, centering, etc. Now I have Google Search instead of the default search.

I had to move a couple of things around because the Google Search widget is taller than the default one. No problem… 5 minutes in my sidebar file and I was done.

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Peter at Necessary Skills doesn't write as many articles as I do, but he puts more into each article than I could ever think of doing. Speaking of thinking, every one of his articles makes me think. If my brain hurts, it's usually his fault.