I haven’t gotten any feedback on whether this is actually working yet or not, but I found out Google has an API I can tie SearchLink into, which opens up a ton of possibilities. Thing is, you have to get your own API key, and you’re limited to 100 queries/day unless you want to pay. Which, for most purposes, is plenty, I think. I run out of queries when I’m running tests, but I think most people would rarely hit the limit, and SearchLink will fall back to DuckDuckGo search when it runs out.
So, if anyone wants to set up Google with SearchLink and let me know how it works for them, I’d greatly appreciate it. Here are the instructions: Using Google Search · ttscoff/searchlink Wiki · GitHub
It may be that I misunderstand how custom searches and API keys work together and it doesn’t actually work for anyone but me, which is a thing I very much need to know!