ProBlogger Group Writing Project – How to Customize Your Google Homepage

Darren Rowse has another group writing project that is designed to teach bloggers how to write a “how-to” post. While the post does not have to have “how to” in the title, it is designed to teach a reader how to do something. When I first was learning how to blog, I was immediately attracted to his site because of the straightforward way that Darren uses to teach people how to get the most from blogging.

Getting the most from Google is something that surfers like me to try to do everyday. I am constantly on the site to search for information that will help me perform my job better. Fortunately, Google has made it easier for everyone. It offers a personalized start page which serves as a launching pad for searching and reading content from various sources. To utilize the personalized home page, you must sign up for a Google account. This allows you to utilize any of the services (applets) that Google supports, such as GMail and the basic Google search box.
After approval, you are present with a shell of a start page, which has sample content that can help you get started in building your customized start page.

On any page, you can use the “add more to this page” feature to add additional content that you want to appear on the selected page.

This feature has a search box that lets a user enter a keyword such as “George W. Bush” and search for content that relates to the keyword. Each content source retrieved from the search has an “Add This Now” button” that allows content items to be selected individually or as a group to the page that you are currently highlighting. The “add more to this page” feature also allows you to view and select content sources by category.

You can add additional tabs that categorize the content that you want displayed on your page. You can move content between tabs by simply dragging the content to the tab that you want it to be placed in. There is tremendous flexibility in customizing your page, and you are not limited to just one style layout. To make your personalized home page your default, you would need to follow browser-specific instructions from Google:

Google Support:
http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=25557&topic=9002

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