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Here's a few options at different places in the spectrum for ease of UX vs. work required by the search engine:

Make search engines (appearing in that list) installable as apps.

Have search engine websites include some metadata about the API. When this metadata block is present, add a "make this site the default search engine" to the Safari menu.

Allow the user to enter an arbitrary URL with some substitutions.

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The approach seems to be shifting from #2 (which winds up being an invasive prompt in some cases which is separate from management) to #1 in the form of Web Extensions.

Safari however does not currently support new search engines via web extension metadata.

Thanks good suggestions. I think both your last options would work. Either one could be passed through automatically with a deep link from their website (either the search engine base url or your special url in the last point)

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