Last year, we introduced the ability to return Google Site Search result sets that include custom metadata attributes (data which specifies information about your content, such as author or time and date of creation), as well as the means to restrict results to a smaller set as defined by a specific attribute value. Today, we are happy to announce two new metadata features that allow you to customize search results even further.

The first feature, restrict to range, introduces the ability to confine results to a defined range. For example, if you designate date as a metadata attribute, an administrator could elect to only display results published within a given time period. Through a custom user interface, you could also extend these refinement privileges to your users.

Our second feature, sort by attribute, provides the option to order search results by metadata attributes, such as by date, rating, or price - letting you or your users further tailor the presentation of search results, providing a more effective search experience.

Google Site Search customer SignOnSanDiego.com is a California news portal which uses the new sort by attribute feature. Given that readers come to the site to be informed of the latest local news, the portal uses a date bias to favor recent articles over older ones. This provides users with results that are now not only relevant, but also timely.

With Google Site Search’s new sort feature, readers at SignOnSanDiego.com see the latest news results first.

Like SignOnSanDiego.com, you can use metadata attributes to enhance your search results. If you’ve already marked up your site with metadata attributes, you can use these new features today and tweak Google Site Search so that it is just right for your visitors. See our metadata documentation for more information.