Leveraging Google Homepage Extensions

I recently took a gander at the Google Modules site and saw a few great extensions. Some of them are a bit random and don't apply to me, but many of them were cool, like the to do list or the Technorati Mini extension which searches for SeoBook.com citations once a minute. (please note to track your own blog you have to view source, copy it, change the s= URL to your own URL, upload it to your server, then add it to your customized Google home page. Niall probably should have made the to track bit something you could enter after you uploaded it.)

Google is going to use many vertical databases to structure information. They also are going to allow users to create their own home pages as they see fit.

I believe one of the extensions was for horse racing. Getting links or visitors into a horse racing site is probably not a cheap and easy task, but imagine the lead value of a customer who loves horse racing so much that they have to be able to access the latest odds from their home page.

If your extension is cool enough it may provide direct traffic AND link popularity. Those who care about something enough to customize their home page for it are likely they same type of people who would also have websites and tell friends what they put on their home page.

I have not looked through all the extensions yet, but creating free extensions is perfect for concert ticket brokers, exotic travel sites, currency exchange sites, or other sites that provide free useful service.

Even if you provide a boring service you may get a few additional citations by spending 10 minutes creating a free Google Modules XML extension. The same can be said for browser extensions (think Mozdev) or other similar free distribution channels.