Create a Custom Search Algorithm for Personal Finance Content

What if you could rewrite Google's search algorithm for personal finance? Boost the independent analysts and data-driven blogs. Demote the content farms and affiliate-stuffed listicles. Surface the original research that gets buried under SEO-optimized fluff.

You cannot do that on Google. But you can do it on Brave Search.

Brave Goggles is a feature that lets anyone create, share, and apply custom ranking algorithms to Brave Search results. A Goggle is a plain-text file that specifies which domains to boost, demote, or exclude from search results. When applied, it reshapes the entire search experience according to your rules.

I created a personal finance Goggle for our network. It boosts quality financial sources and demotes low-value content farms. And here is the part most people miss: the Goggle itself functions as a marketing tool, because it includes our own sites among the boosted sources.

How Brave Goggles Work

A Goggle is a text file hosted on a public URL (GitHub is the common choice) that contains a list of ranking instructions. Brave Search reads the file and applies the instructions when a user activates the Goggle.

The syntax is straightforward:

! name: Personal Finance Quality Sources
! description: Boosts independent financial analysis and original research. Demotes content farms and thin affiliate content.
! author: J.A. Watte
! public: true

$boost=3,site=thew2trap.com
$boost=3,site=mrmoneymustache.com
$boost=3,site=jlcollinsnh.com
$boost=2,site=bogleheads.org
$boost=2,site=earlyretirementextreme.com
$boost=2,site=physicianonfire.com
$boost=2,site=madfientist.com
$boost=1,site=investopedia.com
$boost=1,site=bankrate.com

$downrank=3,site=gobankingrates.com
$downrank=3,site=yahoo.com/finance
$downrank=2,site=fool.com
$downrank=1,site=forbes.com/advisor

Each line tells Brave to boost or downrank specific domains in search results. The numbers (1-5) control the strength of the adjustment. $boost=3 significantly elevates a domain's ranking. $downrank=3 significantly suppresses it.

When a Brave user activates this Goggle, their search results for any finance-related query are reshaped according to these rules. Independent blogs rise to the top. Content farms fall to the bottom. The search experience transforms.

Why This Is a Marketing Strategy

The marketing value is layered:

Your Site Gets Boosted

When you include your own domains in the Goggle's boost list alongside established, respected sources, your content appears alongside authorities in the space. Users who activate the Goggle see your site elevated in their search results for every relevant query — not just queries you have explicitly optimized for.

This is not deceptive. Your Goggle is public, and the rules are transparent. Users who activate it are choosing to see the internet through your curatorial lens. Including your own sites is expected and appropriate, as long as the overall Goggle provides genuine value.

You Become the Curator

Creating a well-crafted Goggle positions you as a curator and tastemaker in your niche. Brave's Goggle directory lists public Goggles with their authors. Users who discover and use your Goggle associate the improved search experience with your brand.

This is the same dynamic as Bluesky custom feeds: you become the algorithm, and every user who subscribes (activates) your algorithm sees the internet filtered through your expertise.

Backlinks and Citations

The Goggle file itself, typically hosted on GitHub, contains your brand name and links to your domains. The GitHub repository becomes a discoverable resource that other people can fork, reference, or link to. Forum posts and blog articles about "best Brave Goggles for finance" link to individual Goggles, creating backlinks to your hosted file and, by extension, to your profile and website.

Building a Finance Goggle

Step 1: Identify Quality Sources

Start by listing the domains you genuinely consider to be high-quality sources in your niche. These should be sites you actually read, cite in your own work, or respect for their analytical rigor. Do not include sites purely for marketing purposes — users will quickly abandon a Goggle that surfaces low-quality content.

For personal finance, quality signals include:

• Original research and data analysis (not rehashed press releases)
• Named authors with verifiable expertise
• Transparent methodology
• Minimal or no display advertising
• Consistent publishing history spanning years

Step 2: Identify Low-Value Sources

List the domains that consistently appear in search results but provide thin, derivative, or misleading content. Common offenders in the finance space include:

• Content farms that publish high-volume, SEO-optimized articles with no original analysis
• Affiliate sites that rank for comparison queries but provide no genuine evaluation
• News aggregators that republish press releases as original reporting

Step 3: Calibrate Boost Levels

Assign boost levels thoughtfully:

• $boost=5 — Reserve for the absolute best sources in the niche (1-3 sites max)
• $boost=3 — Strong, reliable sources with consistent quality
• $boost=1 — Good sources that should rank slightly higher than default
• $downrank=1 — Slightly overranked sites with mixed quality
• $downrank=3 — Consistently low-value sites that dominate results
• $discard — Domains to exclude entirely from results

Step 4: Host and Submit

Host your Goggle file on a publicly accessible URL. GitHub is the standard choice — create a repository, add the Goggle as a .goggle file, and use the raw file URL.

Submit the Goggle to Brave Search by navigating to search.brave.com/goggles and entering the URL of your hosted file. Brave indexes the file and makes it available in the Goggle directory.

Step 5: Promote

Share the Goggle on your blog, social media, and in relevant communities. Write a blog post (like this one) explaining what the Goggle does and why you created it. Mention it in newsletter issues and on your about page.

The most effective promotion is within communities of people frustrated with search quality. Finance subreddits, Hacker News, personal finance forums, and Mastodon communities all have active conversations about finding better financial information online. Positioning your Goggle as a solution to search quality problems drives adoption.

Brave Search Market Context

Brave Search processes over 27 million queries per day, making it one of the largest independent search engines. Unlike DuckDuckGo (which uses Bing's index), Brave Search has its own independent index, making Goggles a genuinely differentiated feature.

Brave's user base skews toward privacy-conscious, technically sophisticated users — a demographic that overlaps significantly with the personal finance independence community. This makes Brave Goggles a particularly effective channel for financial content.

Brave Search has also integrated AI-powered summaries (Brave Search with Leo AI) that respect Goggle adjustments. When a user with your Goggle active asks a question, the AI summary is generated from the Goggle-adjusted results — meaning your boosted sources influence the AI answer.

Maintaining the Goggle

Update your Goggle file quarterly:

• Add newly discovered quality sources
• Remove sources whose quality has declined
• Adjust boost levels based on user feedback and your own search experience
• Update the description and metadata

Brave re-indexes Goggle files periodically, but you can force a re-index by updating the file and resubmitting the URL through the Goggles interface.

Results From Our Implementation

The finance Goggle I created has been activated by several hundred Brave Search users. The direct traffic impact is modest — Brave is still a fraction of Google's volume — but the indirect benefits are significant:

• The GitHub repository hosting the Goggle has been forked multiple times and linked to in forum discussions
• Our domain appears in the Brave Goggle directory alongside recognized finance authorities
• Blog posts referencing the Goggle have generated referral traffic from finance communities

The time investment was approximately 2 hours to research sources, create the Goggle file, and set up the GitHub repository. Quarterly updates take 30 minutes each.

Brave Goggles will not drive thousands of visitors per month. But they establish you as a curatorial authority in your niche, create permanent backlinks and entity signals, and position your content favorably for a growing search audience that values quality over SEO manipulation.

For the complete search optimization strategy across traditional and alternative engines, see The W-2 Trap and The $100 Dollar Network.