Adding Search Function Where to start?

[Jeff Sundin]

I need to learn how to add search function to a new site. This is my first look into this, can someone point me to a good starting point?

[incrediblehelp]

Here are a couple:

Google Custom Search Engine - Site search and more

Web Site Search Engine, Free and Pro Versions - FreeFind.com

[Jeff Sundin]

Thank you!
How about setting up a data base for searching the site? These folks have a green house and offer lots of varieties of plants etc....They want the customers to be able to use the web site in the store to check for a variety that might be good in shade, or attracts butterflies etc...
I've looked at a few similar sites that have added the google search bar and I don't get very many matches when I try using them. Does the google search perform better within the site if the descriptions and images are carefully matched?

[Dubbya]

I use Zoom Search on one of the business sites I manage.

There's a free version but it's well worth buying. It's a breeze to implement and easy to modify the results page as well. You can make the results look just like any of the big SE's but you're in control. No ads, nothing to take visitors off your site.

You use software to spider your site and upload flat text files to your server. If you add/remove pages or content, just run it again, upload the files and you're good to go. The whole process takes mere minutes.

It'll even spider database driven sites just like any sitemap generator does. (Perfect for ecommerce sites).

Check it out
Zoom Search Engine - Add search to your website, intranet or CD/DVD

Wanna see it in action? Visit Payroll Services Canada - Payroll Outsourcing solutions and give it a go.

[Tech Manager]

Jeff:

While the above solutions can produce some excellent results, I usually look to see what type of data I am supporting, whether the pages are static or dynamic and how the data is stored. If you are using a database then it is really quite simple to create or customize search scripts to access and display the available data.

[kgun]

This is a sticky post:

free internal site search code ?

Don't dig too deep is my advice. I once used the one proposed by incrediblehelp and it may be good enough.

Since this thread is posted in the database forum:

If you are clever on SQL, using a database may be the best solution. You can make the search options you like depending on the fields and records in the database. Then it is very important to have a good structure on your tables, fields and records.

[MursPlace]

Originally Posted by Jeff Sundin

Thank you!
How about setting up a data base for searching the site? These folks have a green house and offer lots of varieties of plants etc....They want the customers to be able to use the web site in the store to check for a variety that might be good in shade, or attracts butterflies etc...
I've looked at a few similar sites that have added the google search bar and I don't get very many matches when I try using them. Does the google search perform better within the site if the descriptions and images are carefully matched?

Jeff, I had the same problem and was told to try Google, MSN and the others as embeded search to the site.

If you are planning on running a search from a SQL server or any database server don't include the Google or MSN searches it will distract from your clients website.

Are you a good db programmer? (ASP SQL)
Because you posted this in the Database forum I'm guessing you know db's.

I have allot of resources for ASP SQL but know enough to be really dangerous with others.

What a search should search; Products, Blogs, Forums, Txt, Docs, Page Content, etc.

Output should be grouped based on your sites priorities. I group in order of Products, Reviews, Articles, Content, then it fills the blogs, forums at the end.

The page content is the tuff if you don't use dynamic content but you can program a crawler to index and save to a table your data to search later.

[texxs]

I agree, google search on a specific site usually sucks because it uses the google algo.

if it used a different algo that placed a higher value on content, titles, keywords and descriptions, instead of their current method of links to the page and their text, then it would work great


If you know DB's your better of going at it alone and using simple SELECT statements