I have been using Google Free, customized version, on my website for
more than 3 years.  It worked exactly as Google and I intended.  I
used the Google code that was then provided.  I started a thread at a
discussion forum on the subj of Google Free, and one reader asked me
why I had altered the code, as the search default was to www, not my
domain.  As a result of that question, I revisited Google Free, and
copied its custom code onto my website search page.  Ever since, on
the search results page, my logo does not appear at all, and, where it
should be, it is incorrectly aligned left (should be centered).

I have been trying unsuccessfully to find out why this is happening,
and what I need to do to make the website logo display correctly on
the results page.  No one at the forum has offered a solution.  Please
go to the thread at the forum and read the posts, which describes what
happened.  The link to the thread is
http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8844 .  This
thread has the website address, other details.  If there is not enough
detail to answer the question, I will be glad to supply it.

I am aware that Google Researchers are independent contractors and
that the answer I am looking for may be publicly available on Google's
website or elsewhere.

The Question is:  What do I have to do to make the results page
correctly display my website logo?  The correct answer will be the one
that provides
the correct coding for my website page
http://www.imagesofeyes.com/google.htm that results in proper display
of the logo.

ioegall-ga:

First, please let me compliment you on a truly unique gallery of fine
art images! It is clearly a labour of much love for you.

The cause of the problem that you are trying to solve is actually a
very simple one. The line breaks are in the wrong places in your
Search Google code section. Now, the nature of the Google Answers
interface will make it difficult for me to cut and paste the code
here, but I'll try so that you can see the issue for yourself. In the
following snippets, I have replaced all of the less-than characters (
< ) and greater-than characters ( > ) with, respectively, the
'{' and '}' characters:

----------------------------------------------------------
This is what is on your http://www.imagesofeyes.com/google.htm page
right now, I've put a line number in front of each actual line so that
even if somehow the text wraps in your browser as you view this,
you'll see where the actual line breaks are:


01- {!-- Search Google --}
02- {center}
03- {FORM method=GET action=://www.google.com/custom}
04- {TABLE bgcolor=#FFFFFF cellspacing=0 border=0}
05- {tr valign=top}{td}
06- {A HREF=://www.google.com/search}
07- {IMG SRC=://www.google.com/logos/Logo_40wht.gif border=0
ALT=Google align=middle}{/A}
08- {/td}
09- {td}
10- {INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=31 maxlength=255 value=""}
11- {INPUT type=submit name=sa VALUE="Google Search"}
12- {INPUT type=hidden name=cof
VALUE="S:http://www.imagesofeyes.com;GL:0;VLC:#FF6600;AH:
13- center;BGC:white;LH:80;LC:#0000FF;L:
14- http://www.imagesofeyes.com/images/ioegall550x80.gif;ALC:#FF0000;LW:550;T:black;AWFID:b0fdbf5204d58268;"}
15- {input type=hidden name=domains value="imagesofeyes.com"}{br}
16- {input type=radio name=sitesearch value=""} WWW 
17- {input type=radio name=sitesearch value="imagesofeyes.com"
checked} imagesofeyes.com
18- {/td}{/tr}{/TABLE}
19- {/FORM}
20- {/center}
21- {!-- Search Google --} 
 
----------------------------------------------------------

The problem is caused by the ill-placed line breaks on lines 12 and 13
of the above snippet. You see, the contents of that INPUT tag happens
to contain all of the intelligence that drives the appearance of the
resulting Search Results page. More specifically, the VALUE= field
contains a semi-colon separated list of a setting name, a colon, and a
value. As you can see, the "AH:" setting, and the "L:" setting, both
are immediately followed by a line break. Normally, line breaks in
HTML code are just considered white-space, just like a space
character. In a case such as this, though, where the line-break is
part of a VALUE string that is being passed as part of a FORM, it ends
up breaking the code in the wrong place. That is why, when you get the
mal-formed results page where your logo does not appear, the source
view for that page shows the source of the image as
"__http://www.imagesofeyes.com/images/ioegall550x80.gif"... the '__'
characters are result of the line-feed and carriage-return characters
that represent the unnecessary line-break in your original source
code. Similarly, the unnecessary line-break between the horizontal
alignment setting "AH:" and its value means that the result page no
longer centers the logo and search field.

To fix this, you can simply delete the unnecessary line-breaks. If you
would like to have line-breaks just for legibility reasons, then
insert the line-breaks immediately after a semi-colon so that they do
not get interpreted as valid parts of the setting values. For example,
here is what the revised lines 12-14 would look like with line-breaks
shifted (again with the less-than and greater-than characters
substituted so that the code appears properly):


----------------------------------------------------------


12- {INPUT type=hidden name=cof
VALUE="S:http://www.imagesofeyes.com;GL:0;VLC:#FF6600;
13- AH:center;BGC:white;LH:80;LC:#0000FF;L:http://www.imagesofeyes.com/images/ioegall550x80.gif;
14- ALC:#FF0000;LW:550;T:black;AWFID:b0fdbf5204d58268;"}

----------------------------------------------------------

All I have done, is inserted the line-break in front of the "AH:" and
"ALC:" settings, and deleted the original two ill-placed ones.

For a deeper understanding of what the various settings do:

  S:     site URL
  GL:    Google Logo background colour (0=white, 1=grey, 2=black)
  VLC:   visited link colour
  AH:    horizontal alignment of logo (left, center)
  BGC:   background colour
  LH:    logo height
  LC:    link colour
  L:     location of your logo
  ALC:   active link colour
  LW:    logo width
  T:     text colour
  AWFID: your unique site identifier for the Google Free service

Naturally, the easiest way to adjust any of these is through the
Google Free Web Search wizard that you originally used, at
://www.google.com/services/free.html .

Please make the change to the source code of your 'google.htm'
webpage, and check it out to see if the problem is gone. You may need
to refresh your browser to make sure that the version you are seeing
is the updated version.

Let me know if you would like me to explain any part of this Answer,
by using the Request Clarification button above. Enjoy!

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

aht-ga -- your answer is clear and understandable and exactly what I
was looking for.  Well done and thank you!  If I were a drinking man I
would be out celebrating.  Instead, the celebration is for you with a
tip appreciation.  If you will visit that google.htm page again, look
for a small but special note to you, which will remain on that page in
perpetuity.

ioegall-ga:

Thanks for the generous tip, and for the mention on your web page!

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Howdy ioegall-ga,

Might I suggest you make the mention (nice of you!) of aht-ga a link
to his "Researcher Ratings" page?

http://answers.google.com/answers/ratings?user=5200365360292544455

Impressive work, aht-ga!

Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher