Now that Google has begun offering more ways by which users can search within a particular site, certain retailers and publishers aren’t too happy. The company’s new (though controversial) search-within-search feature lets users stay on Google to find pages on popular sites. The search box appears when a user enters the name of certain Web addresses or company names, rather than entering a broad, general request.

The results of the search are almost all individual company pages. Google tops those results with a link to the home page of the Web site in question, adds another search box, and offers users the chance to let Google search for certain things within that site.

The problem, for some in the industry, is that when someone enters a term into that secondary search box, Google will display ads for competing sites, thereby profiting from ads it sells against the brand, an article in the New York Times stated. The feature also keeps users searching on Google pages and not pages of the destination Web site.

Analysts generally praise the feature as helping users save steps, but for Web publishers and retailers, there are trade-offs. While the service could help increase traffic, some users could be siphoned away as Google uses the prominence of the brands to sell ads, typically to competing companies, the article added.

Google’s aggressiveness, according to some analysts, ignores a user’s desire to reach a specific destination and it costs those Web sites visitors. But Google said it did not receive many complaints directly from companies, but some search-engine specialists were quick to pounce when the company announced its service.

Eventually this could be a huge problem if Google starts throwing this out there to all brands, said Pinny Gniwisch, vice president for marketing of Ice.com, an online jeweler. This is essentially giving the customer a way to leave a search for your site.

On the other hand, Donna Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at the University of California Riverside, predicted that Internet users will really like this because it’s probably a better way to search a site than going to the sites themselves. But as consumers appreciate this more, there’ll be more and more outcry from companies.

The general sentiment of these companies seems to be: Why advertise on other sites when I could just advertise on Google? The new Google service, some say, also diminishes a Web publisher’s role in helping users find potentially useful content.

According to a Google spokeswoman, the feature is currently available for an undisclosed but relatively small number of sites, and appeared when Google detected a high probability that a user wanted more refined search results within a specific site. While Google has not received much negative feedback on the service, she said, the company could change it in the future.