Google has launched a vertical search site for U.S. government websites, specifically targeted at federal employees who often need to conduct searches across a host of government agency sites, writes the Washington Post. Google U.S. Government Search is also designed to help citizens navigate through the maze of sites as well as set up news feeds by customizing the layout of their personalized homepage.

Google U.S. Government Search is similar to the five-year-old FirstGov.gov, the government-sponsored site powered by MSN, intended to help citizens locate federal, state and local government information. More than 87 million unique visitors used Google's search engine in May, compared with 443,000 that searched FirstGov, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Google has launched several vertical search engines, more recent among them sites that search the contents of scholarly journals, books and blogs. Yesterday, Google Book Search launched a website for searching Shakespearean plays.