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University Communications and Marketing 
Web Platforms and Documentation

Site Search

The search box within the Utility Bar can be used to search your own site in addition to all of ncsu.edu.

To configure the search box for your site, go to NC State Settings within the Dashboard of your site. The General section for the NC State Theme will have a box where the Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) ID can be input.

How to Acquire Google CSE ID

  1. Go to google.com/cse
  2. Click ‘Create a custom search engine’ and login (you may want to use a generic Google Account or check with your IT department to see if they have any management policies)
  3. Provide the URL(s) that you’d like to be searchable. This is usually the URL of your site (mysite.ncsu.edu for example), but you may want to have the search engine search all of the sites within your unit/college/division. If this is the case, you will want to insert the URL for each of those sites.
  4. Complete additional fields as prompted.
  5. In left-hand menu, expand the “Edit Search Engine” section of the menu
  6. Ensure that the appropriate ‘search engine’ is selected from the drop-down box. This should match the name of the search engine you just created.
  7. Click ‘Look and Feel’
  8. Within the ‘Layout’ tab, click ‘Results Only’
  9. To hide ads on your custom search engine, follow the steps outlined in this OIT article.
  10. The custom search engine should now be configured. Within the address bar of your browser, copy the text that follows “cx=”. This is your search engine’s ID that will need to be pasted into WordPress. It normally contains many numbers followed by a colon and many letters. (Example: 012169069644447584939:zcwvuaazmyi)

Need help?

Have questions? Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns at go.ncsu.edu/ucomm-dev-request.