Leonard Cohen-Focused Custom Search Engine & Index
What is the Leonard Cohen Custom Search Engine?
First of all, the Leonard Cohen Custom Search is in no way analogous to “Where’s Waldo?”
The Leonard Cohen Custom Search Engine at LeonardCohenSearch.com is a Google-powered search process that has been altered (customized) to search only specified web sites or, in some cases, specified portions of web sites1 I have selected because they contain useful information about Leonard Cohen, the poet and singer-songwriter.2
Why is the Leonard Cohen Custom Search Engine?
Research for pieces I’ve written about Leonard Cohen and Anjani brought me repeatedly to sites at which dedicated fans have accumulated an impressive amount of data about Cohen’s life and work.3
I thought I could accomplish this research more efficaciously with a search engine customized to search only those web sites I’ve found most useful and accurate.4 Happily, Google has made tools to accomplish this task accessible to wannabe geeks like me.
So, I rigged up and used a search engine that is at least effective enough to convince me that it’s faster and more accurate than a general search.
Eventually, it occurred to me that one or another person might find it helpful as well. To make the search mechanism usable, I spiffed up the search page, popped for a domain at which the search engine could reside (LeonardCohenSearch.com), ginned up a graphic or two, and threw in some links to reference sources I’ve found helpful.
And as of this evening, it’s open for business. Even if you are not enamored of the music of Leonard Cohen (and, as always, you have my sympathy), you may want to check out the site for a sense of how the Google custom search, a powerful tool that coud be beneficial for an extended range of subjects in a large number of situations, works.
LeonardCohenSearch can be accessed at Leonard Cohen Custom Search
- Heck of a Guy blog, for example, contains several posts about Leonard Cohen and Anjani but also, as the recurrent reader knows, has posts about sugarplums (as in “visions of”), broomcorn, and prototypes for a new McHenry Illinois County Seal, all of which may be of less compelling interest to your average Cohenista. Consequently, Leonard Cohen Custom Search searches only the “Leonard Cohen” and “Anjani” categories of Heck of a Guy blog, so the reader who attempts to track down my three part exposition on George Washington Carver on this custom search engine is likely to find only frustration. [↩]
- Rather than, say, Leonard Cohen, the New York accountant [↩]
- While there are a batch of Cohen-dedicated sites, clearly the most impressive and influential is leonardcohenfiles.com, for which Jarkko Arjatsalo serves as webmaster. It is no small factor that leonardcohenfiles.com has earned the trust and appreciation of Cohen himself, who has released significant raw materials (e.g., notebook pages Cohen used in the creation of a finished song), answered innumerable queries, and revealed future plans in order to enhance the site. [↩]
- Limiting searches to only those sites invested in gathering and offering reliable and valid information about Leonard Cohen excludes many potential search hits that are irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading, rendering it easier and faster to find the correct data with less risk of errors contaminating the findings. [↩]
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