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How to Make Your Own Buttons:

1. All you need is a URL and and an Icon image.
2. Create an XML file called yourname.xml
3. In that XML file use the following template
   

   <custombuttons>
   
   <button>
   
   <title>Name of Button</title>
   
   <description>
   
   What that button does or what the site is about.
   
   </description>
   
   <site>URL of tool or homepage </site>
   
   <search>
   
   http://www.google.com/search?sitesearch=URL.com&amp;q={query}
   
   </search>
   
   <send>
   
   http://www.google.com/search?sitesearch=URL.com&amp;q={selection}
   
   </send>
   
   <feed refresh-interval="900" refresh-onclick="true">feed location</feed>
   
   <icon mode="base64" type="image/x-icon">base 64 version of your icon
   
   </icon>
   
   </button>
   
   </custombuttons>

   
   
4. if you do not have a feed then you do not need the feed part. The feed refresh # is in seconds, and the refresh onclick ensures you have the most recent version of that feed when you click it.
5. note that if you use & in your code you must do the code equivalent of it, which is &amp;
6. The search and send functions can work with your tools or internal site search. If your internal site search is not that good then just use Google site level search, as in the above example.
7. A favicon is the little icon you see in the browser address bar right before the address of the web page you are viewing.
8. How to create favicons
   
   • create one from an image using this
   • create one from scratch by painting one on this
   • How to get a favicon from another site
     (assuming you are making a button for them)
     
     
     • Most good sites have a file called favicon.ico in their root. type site.com/favicon.ico in your address bar and the favicon should come up. If it does you can click on it and save it.
     • If you can't get the favicon to come up (ie it is showing you funky characters) you can do a screen grab of the Favicon from the address bar using software like SnagIt.
     • After you get your favicon you can convert it to base 64 by using this tool. Place that code between the <icon> </icon> parts of your toolbar button XML code.
     • Link to your Google Toolbar XML file using the following formathttp://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=http://site.com/buttonurl.xml
     • Here is an example link to add the SEO Book button.
     • You can also largely automate the process for some sites, as noted by Google on this page.
     • Google offers samples here and their official instructions are here.