School Lookup App – Google Custom Search Integration

Project Overview

Developed for a U.S.-based obituary and memorial platform, this custom school lookup app provides targeted search functionality that WordPress could not handle natively.
The goal was to allow users to search for specific school names across a network of subdomains — each school having its own microsite — while preserving the host website’s design integrity and performance.

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Technical Architecture

The application was built in React and integrated via a custom WordPress plugin. It interacts directly with Google’s Custom Search JSON API, restricting results to a defined list of verified domains.
This allowed for fine-grained control over the search experience and accurate filtering of results specific to school pages.

System Highlights

• React app compiled and injected into WordPress as a plugin
• Custom PHP wrapper for communication between WordPress and the React frontend
• Google API requests restricted to specific school-related subdomains
• Real-time rendering of search results in a custom UI
• JSON response parsed and filtered to include only essential result data

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Design & User Experience

The search interface was designed to blend seamlessly into the existing WordPress site, matching typography, color palette, and layout standards.
This custom React layer allowed full UI flexibility — ensuring the user experience remained consistent while adding powerful external data functionality.

Key Features

• Domain-specific searching: Only returns results from defined school domains
• Dynamic result loading: Instant search without full page reloads
• Custom-styled interface: Matches the parent website’s branding
• Responsive design: Optimized for desktop and mobile users
• Scalable integration: Easily extensible to include new domains

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Implementation Details

Frontend

• Built in React with modular components for input, results, and pagination
• Uses Google Custom Search JSON API for fast query resolution
• Custom CSS and conditional rendering for theming inside WordPress

Backend

• PHP-based WordPress plugin for mounting and serving the React app
• Configurable API keys and domain whitelists stored securely in admin settings
• Error handling and rate limit management for Google API requests

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Result

The finished solution provided a powerful, low-maintenance search tool for the client’s school microsite network — solving a fundamental search limitation without requiring changes to the existing CMS architecture.

The new React-powered lookup app now gives users a simple, intuitive way to locate school profiles directly from the main website — enhancing accessibility and overall user experience while preserving performance and scalability.