[mistermann]

If SO was smart they would write an advanced search form that basically just translates into google compatible syntax and forwards it to google (assuming there are no legal issues with this.) Are there legal issues with this, is this a violation of the google TOS??

[eru]

My gut feeling is that Google would probably be pretty ok if you just generate some (very specific) links to their search.

If you scrapped their results and embedded them into your page, that might be a different story. (They wouldn't like it.)