Automate Site Search with Make.com

Automating site search with make.com lets you build powerful, low-code workflows that deliver relevant results from your website content directly to your users or internal tools. This guide walks you step by step through creating a custom search automation scenario based on the official how-to instructions.

Why automate site search in Make.com

Traditional on-site search often requires custom backend code, databases, and ongoing maintenance. By combining Google Custom Search with make.com scenarios, you can:

• Search one or more websites on demand
• Return structured search results as JSON
• Trigger searches from web apps, bots, or forms
• Avoid building and hosting your own search engine

The result is a flexible search service you can plug into any application that can send HTTP requests.

Prerequisites for your Make.com search scenario

Before building the automation, prepare these components:

• A Google account
• A Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) configured for your site or multiple sites
• Your CSE Search engine ID
• A Custom Search API key
• An active make.com account

Configure Google Custom Search

Follow the Google documentation to create a Custom Search Engine and enable the Custom Search API. Once done, note these values:

• CX (Search engine ID): identifies the CSE to query.
• API key: authenticates the call to Google.

You will use both in your make.com scenario settings.

Designing the Make.com scenario

The core idea is to create a webhook that receives a search query, passes it to Google Custom Search via HTTP, then returns formatted results. In make.com this is handled visually with modules connected in a flow.

High-level workflow overview

1. Receive a query string from an external app via a Webhook.
2. Send the query to Google Custom Search using an HTTP module.
3. Parse the JSON response.
4. Format the results into a structured response.
5. Return data to the caller or forward it to another service.

This structure can be adapted to power chatbots, internal search tools, or frontend site search widgets using make.com.

Step 1: Create a webhook in Make.com

1. Log in to your make.com dashboard.
2. Create a new Scenario.
3. Add the Webhooks module as the first module.
4. Select Custom webhook and create a new one.
5. Copy the webhook URL that make.com generates.

This URL is where your application will send search requests. It can accept HTTP queries and JSON payloads depending on your configuration.

Define expected input parameters

Typically you will want at least one parameter:

• q or query: the search term that the user enters.

You can send this value either in query string parameters or in the request body. The Webhooks module in make.com will capture it for mapping into later modules.

Step 2: Call Google Custom Search from Make.com

Next you connect the webhook to an HTTP module that sends the search request to Google.

1. Add a new HTTP module after the Webhooks module.
2. Choose Make a request.
3. Set the Method to GET.
4. Set the URL to the Custom Search endpoint, for example:
   https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1

Configure query parameters in Make.com

In the same HTTP module, add these query string parameters:

• key: your Google API key.
• cx: your search engine ID (CSE ID).
• q: map this field from the webhook input data.

You can optionally configure additional parameters such as:

• num: maximum number of results per request.
• siteSearch: restrict results to a particular domain.
• safe: enable safe search filtering.

Once saved, run the scenario in Listening mode and send a test request to the webhook URL. Make.com will forward the query to Google Custom Search and return a JSON payload.

Step 3: Parse and map Google results in Make.com

The response from Google Custom Search includes an array of items, each representing a result. To work with this data in make.com, you map the relevant fields.

Inspect the JSON structure

In the test run output of the HTTP module, look for the items array. Each item can contain:

• title
• link
• snippet
• displayLink
• formattedUrl

These fields are usually enough to build a basic search result list in your application.

Format data with tools modules in Make.com

To return clean results, you can add another module such as:

• Tools > Iterator: to process each search result item.
• Tools > Create JSON: to build a structured JSON response for your frontend or caller.

Define a JSON structure with properties like title, url, and summary, and map them from the HTTP response. Make.com makes this mapping visual, so you can drag each field from the response into your template.

Step 4: Return results from Make.com

How you send results back depends on the kind of integration you are building.

Return a direct webhook response

If you want the original caller to receive results immediately:

1. Add a new Webhooks > Custom webhook response module at the end of the scenario.
2. Map your formatted JSON or text into the Body field.
3. Set Content type to application/json for APIs or text/html for HTML snippets.

Your application can then display these search results directly to the user.

Forward results to another service

Alternatively, you can route search output from make.com to other destinations, for example:

• A Slack channel, Microsoft Teams, or email.
• A database or spreadsheet for logging queries.
• A chatbot platform that consumes the results as part of a conversation.

Just add the desired service module to the end of your scenario and map the data.

Testing and optimizing your Make.com search flow

Once the basic setup is working, refine both search quality and performance.

Improve search quality

• Tune your Custom Search Engine configuration in Google.
• Restrict or expand the list of domains and paths.
• Use synonyms and boosting options where available.
• Limit result counts for faster response times.

Harden the Make.com scenario

• Add conditional logic for empty queries.
• Handle cases where Google returns no results.
• Implement basic rate limiting when calling the API.
• Log errors to a monitoring channel or storage module.

Regularly review logs and refine your configuration to keep the automation reliable.

Use cases: where Make.com site search shines

With a single scenario you can power multiple experiences:

• Internal knowledge base search for support teams.
• Search widgets for documentation sites.
• AI chatbot backends that need live web content.
• Site-wide search across several domains or microsites.

The low-code nature of make.com means you can extend or repurpose the same flow whenever your requirements change.

Further resources for Make.com and automation

For the original walkthrough and screenshots, see the official how-to guide on automating site search with Integromat and Make at make.com site search tutorial.

If you need strategic help designing scalable automation and AI-driven workflows around make.com, review the consulting services available at Consultevo.

By combining Google Custom Search with the visual modules in make.com, you can deliver fast, reliable search functionality without custom backend development, and you can adapt the same pattern to power many other data retrieval workflows across your stack.

Need Help With Make.com?

If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your Make scenarios, work with ConsultEvo — certified workflow and automation specialists.

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