How is it possible Google Reader doesn't have search??

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I was searching for this post by Jeff Atwood and this got me thinking that it’s crazy Google Reader doesn’t have search! I think when you start using Google Reader you should automatically, and behind the scenes, get a Google Co-op search engine that tracks the sites you are subscribed to and let’s you search only those sites.

Ah ha! It just so happens you can do this yourself. All you need to do is:

  1. Export your Google Reader OPML
  2. Create your own Custom Search Engine (CSE)
  3. Import your OPML file into your CSE
    1. Browse to Google Coop
    2. Click the control panel for your CSE
    3. Click the Advanced link
    4. Under “Annotations” browse to your OPML file and click Uplolad

Presto! You now have a now have a Google Search Engine of your subscribed blogs. Let’s see how well it works on the aforementioned post.

Search from Google.com

 

Search with Google Custom Search Engine (CSE)

 

Sweet! Worked like a charm, now if Google would just do the leg work for us. 🙂

8 thoughts on “How is it possible Google Reader doesn't have search??”

  2. fabiopedrosa,
    Thanks for the link. That looks interesting though wouldn’t have worked in this case as the post was written in 2005. According to my GR Trends I’ve read 489 items over the last 30 days and since Gears has to cache all items I’d probably only get a few weeks worth of items to search.

  3. While I appreciate the response to my blog post — this is a ridiculous bit of work that typical users will not resort to. It’s a bad-aid approach to something that Google should have solved a long, long time ago.

  5. I’ve just been looking into adding a search to my Google Reader and have been stumped at the Google Custom Search Engine bit, which you have to do to get the Greesemonkey script to work. I’ve now happened across this blog post and I think it helps a little more than any explanation of what to do on other sites, but how does one import the OPML file into my Custom Search Engine?

  7. Ok, I never saw that Advanced tab! Many thanks for this instructions, it’s a working now!

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