Website Search Engine

[dumarest]

This is related but slightly off topic - so bear with me please.

I'm looking for a Search Engine/Software etc that will search my website and return entries to my vistors. However, this needs to allow me to post the webpages to the engine since much of my display is a result of database reads and writes and then displaying pages after the associated keys are found.

Can anyone suggest either a open source (Windows) or purchased solution?

Thank You
Dumarest

[brian.mark]

Does it need to search your database, or will you provide a list of queries and the URL's for it to crawl? Do you link to these pages you want indexed on your site already?

There are lots of options, but a little more insight into the use is needed to hook you up with the right solution.

Brian.

[dumarest]

I have the keys to the pages in a database. For example: Country, Province/State and City and Instructor as keys - and after you chose the Instructor you want to review - it goes to a physical webpage. I don't need the SE to crawl my database (didn't know that was even possible) but do want it to crawl the physical pages. The reason this currently is a problem is beacuse there is no web page link to the physical pages - it done thru the lookup via the database. So - I will supply the url's but I want the SE to crawl the pages for the search string entered by the visitor.

Hope that helps..

D

[brian.mark]

If you've got a list of pages for it to crawl, just about any search engine will do.

A couple more questions.

How important is scalability? Are you looking for 100's of qps (queries per second), or are you looking for 100/day?

Do you need substring searches (ne yor for new york, as an example), or will visitors search for full words in the correct manner (singular vs. plural).

Did you want plug-and-play, or do you mind doing some coding to get it working?

Do you have a way to host hardware for search, or does it need to go on an existing server?

Really, we're getting closer to an answer here. I've tried enough solutions that there are way too many options floating through my head right now.

Brian.

[dumarest]

If you've got a list of pages for it to crawl, just about any search engine will do.

A couple more questions.
====
How important is scalability? Are you looking for 100's of qps (queries per second), or are you looking for 100/day?

I'm in the low end right now but it may spiral as time goes by. Let's start with the 100/day.
====
Do you need substring searches (ne yor for new york, as an example), or will visitors search for full words in the correct manner (singular vs. plural).

I mostly expect full word searches..
====
Did you want plug-and-play, or do you mind doing some coding to get it working?

I don't mind doing some coding if that produces a better solution.
====
Do you have a way to host hardware for search, or does it need to go on an existing server?

It needs to go on an existing server - readyhosting.com
====
Really, we're getting closer to an answer here. I've tried enough solutions that there are way too many options floating through my head right now.
Brian.

I appreciate the time you're taking.
Thank you!

D

[brian.mark]

One that came to mind, based on those requirements, is Zoom.

http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/

Pricing is reasonable, and you could try it out for 50 pages to see if it does what you need before you pay anything. You'd just need to turn that list of pages into a list of links, which shouldn't take much. (Post it as a sitemap and who knows... it might help your traffic, too.)

This one just happens to support ASP, PHP, and CGI. If you have a specific language that you'd like to use (if this one won't do what you're really looking for), let me know and I can make more suggestions.

Brian.