[thelist] Site search - what do ya know?

[Tom Dell'Aringa]

Hey web heads,

I'm tasked with putting together a best practices document on site search.
Our potential client has a science web site that is pretty extensive and
they want a search that is going to perform well and promote a good customer
experience. Let's say budget is not an issue at the moment, I'm looking at a
wide spectrum of solutions.

I've looked at a few search solutions in the past that are online based, but
my thought is in this case they are going to want an in-house solution
unless some kind of ASP solution is really bang out wonderful.

I'm particularly interested if anyone has any experience with the google
search appliance, and related products. Anything you can share is greatly
appreciated. I don't know much about what kind of team would implement it,
so don't worry about that. Right now I need to know more about the actual
product and how it performs, how easy it is to implement and maintain, some
idea of cost, that kind of thing.

Please CC me on any responses! (pixelmech at gmail.com) I will compile what I
find and post back to thelist for everyone to see :)

Tom