According to reports, Google has announced that it will allow users create customized search engines to suit their tastes and preferences; be it cooking, gardening, music, the works.

Christened "Google Custom Search Engine," the service is designed to allow users place personal search engines on their Web sites and/or blogs. According to a company source, the tool enables users to search just the content that they care about, cutting through the chaff.

Although the concept of a custom search engine is not entirely new, observers are saying that Google's release goes far beyond what rivals like Yahoo! are currently offering in this space, typically known as social search. Also, the new service aims at strengthening vertical search, an area hitherto dominated largely by small competitors.

In order to place a custom Google search box on their Web sites or blogs, users need to visit google.com/coop/cse, and specify a list of Web sites to search. The custom search engine can either be set up to search the entire Web but stress on chosen sites, or to search only specified Web sites/Web pages. Alternatively, users can set up a search engine to focus entirely on their own Web sites.

Further, Web site owners who install a custom search engine would have to accept Google ads that come along with it, except in a few cases. In the event ads are accepted, revenue also stands to be shared between the Web site owner and Google.

The main advantage of custom search engines is that they make way for more specific results than are customary for a search engine like Google. And, to avoid confusion, all Web sites with custom engines would have to display a disclaimer next to the results they throw up.

As part of a test run, Web sites including Macworld, Intuit's JumpUp.com, and RealClimate.org already feature Google's customized search.

For instance, RealClimate.org, which is a site that tries to give credible expert opinion on climate change, is trying to get users go more quickly to the real stuff on the site with the help of the custom engine.

As a company source puts it, the ultimate objective of Google's all new tool is "to make it easy for anyone to create a search engine about all of their favorite topics".