[thelist] Search Function on Website

[Judah McAuley]

Ken Schaefer wrote:
> Sounds like a maintenance nightmare if you ask me. All "known" misspellings?
> Where do you get this list from?

I'm a fan of general text search software/algorithms from soundex to 
stemming, but the ability to add in your own thesaurus entries and your 
own misspellings would be very handy I think. Consider a situation where 
you are running a technical products company. A number of the terms 
people might be searching for on your website might be uncommon words 
and not have misspellings listed in a general dictionary. But that 
doesn't mean that those words don't have common misspellings.

When Rob was referring to the Google Mini, I think he was advocating the 
use of a search appliance (as you were) but also pointing out that 
extending it to focus on your particular needs can make a great deal of 
business sense.

Judah