[thelist] Site search - what do ya know?

Forest Royse froyse at dimensionxcorp.com
Fri Aug 11 12:08:56 CDT 2006


I've researched all the 3rd party search engines and came to the  
conclusion that it's much better and less expensive to implement a  
search script on your own server if it can handle the load.  I highly  
recommend Wrensoft's Zoom Search Engine.  http://www.wrensoft.com/ 
zoom/  I've used it for several client projects, and it's very fast,  
customizable, and light weight.  Best of all, it doesn't require a  
database.  It supports PHP, ASP, CGI, and JavaScript and includes a  
(PC only) site spidering program that generates the search code based  
on your settings.  And there are TONS of settings you can choose to  
use or not including a search statistics package.   Spider your site,  
create a search results template, integrate your site's search box/ 
page, and upload the Zoom files to your server, and you're done.   
Wrensoft's support is excellent via email or their online forum.   
They offer two versions, both under $100, which is much cheaper than  
any comparable online service for a 1-year contract.  And you can use  
Zoom forever and for multiple clients or websites as long as you  
don't distribute the indexing program.  I have no affiliation with  
Wrensoft, except as a very satisfied customer.  I think the Google  
search appliance is overkill unless you're indexing a huge enterprise  
site or have an overloaded server.  And the Google Free site search  
is too restrictive for most commercial use.  If anybody has found a  
better solution, I'd like to see it.

Forest

On Aug 11, 2006, at 10:33 AM, thelist-request at lists.evolt.org wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:49:56 -0500
> From: "Tom Dell'Aringa" <pixelmech at gmail.com>
> Subject: [thelist] Site search - what do ya know?
> To: thelist <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<c61099b40608101349r22c3e329h93d099d5378f75e7 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> 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




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