Google launched the Google Custom Search Engine today, a pretty neat way of building and customizing a search engine for your blog or website, that can make money for you if you so desire. No programming skills are required, the product is free, and it looks as if this could be the start of “citizen search.”

Check out these interesting takes: Om Malik at GigaOM:

“My inner cynic thinks this is – distributed search optimization effort.”

Greg Sterling at Search Engine Watch:

“Seen in a different way this is Google doing an interesting version of “social search.”"