Did you know about Google’s Custom Search service? Apparently the service was launched over a year ago and is still in beta but it’s really something worth taking a look at. Basically, you can create your own Google-flavored search engine that you can customize and tweak to your heart’s desire. After wrapping my head around it I’m beginning to realize that not only is this a powerful tool for providing targeted and relevant resources for your visitors but there is loads of future potential for affiliate marketers. I realize there are similar services like Rollyo but Google’s got that certain extra something…Here are some really cool features:

Ability to customize look and feel of search box and how links are displayed

Integrate results by displaying them in a custom page on your site

Monetize by linking up your Adsense account and get paid when users click on sponsored results

Make it social by allowing tagging and annotations

Implementation is easy enough that you can have your engine up and running in minutes with no coding skills

I’ve been playing around with it today and if you look on the upper right corner of my blog you’ll see a search box…go ahead and try it out! For now I just put my website to be searched. Also, I keep getting an internal error when I try to link my Adsense account but hopefully I’ll get it to work, or get a response from their message boards with some assistance. Some other sites to check out to see how they are using it (and probably making money with it) are MySpace Tweaks and Moneysmartz.

So why not brainstorm how you could make a niche engine work for you…maybe put your affiliate links in?