Google adds on-demand updates to Site Search

Google is launching a new feature - on- demand indexing - for its business Site Search customers that will allow them to instantly add new pages to search results.

Website owners that use Google's Site Search service in place of a built-in search mechanism will now be able to add new web pages immediately, rather than waiting for Google's automated systems to crawl through the site and detect changes or new content.

Automated crawling offers no guarantee of being up-to-date, while the on-demand indexing feature gives control to the website owner.

Site Search is a paid Google service that website owners use so visitors are able to search for information on their site's pages.

Google licenses the service to website owners at fees starting from $100 (67.50) a year for smaller sites and can charge several thousand pounds for larger sites with thousands of pages. Google executives said they do not break out charges to major site owners whose sites have over 300,000 pages.

For smaller sites Google will license the service for free if adverts are included in the results.

Site Search is an alternative to the Google Search Appliance, which Google sells to businesses wishing to maintain their search infrastructure in-house, but still use Google's search technology.

Google still makes the bulk of its revenue from consumer search marketing and advertising, but has been expanding its search services for small to medium sized businesses, as well as for large enterprises.