A complicated pricing structure does few people any favors.  Businesses just risk annoying or alienating potential customers who don’t feel like pulling out three spreadsheets and a graphing calculator in order to predict their bill.  So it may be a good thing that Google Site Search gained a simpler pricing structure today.

A post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog explained, "To date, we’ve charged for Google Site Search based on both the number of submitted search queries and the number of pages indexed.  We noticed that many of our users had a difficult time estimating the number of pages included in the scope of their search engine, so we are introducing a new pricing system that factors only the quantity of submitted queries your Google Site Search engine receives each year."

You can see the price sheet for yourself below.  With just three columns and six rows (counting the heading), it’s pretty easy to read.

Then here’s one other important point: Google says it isn’t using this change as an opportunity to sneak a price hike past everyone.  The blog posted stated, "The vast majority of our users will be unaffected and many will even begin paying less when the new prices take effect upon their annual renewal."

So current Google Site Search users should remain satisfied, and perhaps a few mathematically challenged business owners will now decide to strike up a relationship with the product.