Remember when people used to debate what search engine was the best among the bunnch? Do you remember back in the day when Yahoo! differentiated itself from other search engines by having actual human beings catalog, summarize, and rate large swaths of the World Wide Web? Today, search is a commodity. It's ubiquitous. Web surfers expect there to be a search box and expect accurate results returned in the blink of an eye. Because of these expectations, it's now more important than ever that your website offers search. I don't care if the site has only five static web pages that only get updated once in a blue moon, you still need search.
The good news is that Google offers free tools for quickly and easily adding search to your site. With Google's Custom Search Engine (CSE) you can add search to your site within a matter of minutes. All it takes is configuring a few settings and then copying and pasting a snippet or two of HTML and JavaScript into your site. A couple of months ago I used CSE to add search to this blog. You can find the search interface in the upper right hand corner of every page or by visiting the Search page.
To learn how to add a search engine to your site using CSE check out my latest article on DotNetSlackers: Implementing Search in ASP.NET with Google Custom Search.
Site Note: Another technique for making your site more searchable is to create an OpenSearch provider. By adding a simple XML file to your website you can have your site searchable through the search box that's baked into the user interface of browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox. Learn more about this technique by reading: Helping Visitors Search Your Site By Creating an OpenSearch Provider.