In the sidebar to the right of this blog, you can search my network using Google– instead of the entire web, you can search just the web sites of my most trusted friends and colleagues.

I constructed that form manually, but I’ve now built a simple web tool that automatically generates these forms for you, making it easy for anyone to construct their own specialized search forms on top of Google.

General purpose search engines are really bad at things like finding trustworthy reviews for specialized equipment. But if you’re an expert on a particular topic, like digital photography, you probably know the best places to find reviews. My hope is that SearchMe and tools like it will make it easier for bloggers and site authors to share that expertise and add an editorial voice to Google.

For now, I’m calling the tool SearchMe:
Try SearchMe

The tool is pretty simple right now– just enter the sites you want to search and past the generated HTML into your web site. One enhancement I plan to add is the ability to host the form on my site for those who can create links but not post arbitrary HTML.