More
information you put into your website - more valuable
it becomes - and gets more difficult to navigate
! No matter how well you design your site navigation,
visitors will need ingenious ways to find what
they are looking for. Site search engines provide
a powerful and familiar means to provide that
access. Visitors can just type the words and press
the Search button in a form, and get a list of
all the documents that match those words on your
site.
We discussed various issues involved,
specially who needs search engines and why in
previous issue. In this article, we discuss the
tasks involved if your website falls into the
category that needs search engine.
There are essentially two ways to
go about
-
buy a search engine software,
install it and develop an in-house program
for maintenance.
-
Outsource the requirement through
hosted search engine
The first option offers more freedom
but costs a lot and requires considerable in-house
technical expertise.
The second option is less expensive
and very easy to implement (anyone with practical
knowledge of HTML can implement it - does not
require technical skill). However, there are a
few issues that need attention before opting for
such a service.
Your own
Search Engine (Local Software)
For an example of such software,
consider the search engine at The Great Indian
Bazaar (the top right corner of www.infobanc.com)
It has separate provisions for searching buyers,
sellers, news items etc. So, if you are searching
for Buyers, the search engine will only display
BUYERS - no unwanted junk. You are unlikely to
get such customization in general purpose search
engines.
Though this option gives you maximum
choice it also requires considerable understanding
of how search engines work and technical skill
to implement. Besides, it costs more and needs
regular maintenance. This place is too short to
discuss the issues involved, we shall instead
concentrate on second option.
Outsourced
or Remotely Hosted Search Engine
The World Wide Web is a marvelous
place - you will find helping hands almost everywhere.
For example, you can outsource your search to
a remote site search service and let someone else
worry about the gory details. The indexer and
search engine run on the remote server: they will
use a web indexing robot, or spider, to follow
links on your site and read the pages, then store
every word in the index file on that server (without
taking a single Kilobyte from your precious server
space).
During search, the visitor fills
up a form on your local Web page (just like any
search engine) which in turn sends the information
to the remote search engine. The remote search
engine takes the search terms, matches the words
in the index, sorts them according to relevance,
and creates an HTML page with the results. When
a searcher clicks on the result link, they will
see the page from your site, just as though the
search came from there. It's easy and painless
for practically everyone.
Advantages
of Remotely Hosted Search Engine
-
No need for server access
Practically any website can use this service
- even if your site is on a shared-host and
you have FTP access only.
-
No need for technical skill
You never need to install any software or
pay someone else to do so
-
Easy administration
The remote search host will take care of daily
maintenance. You simply add/update pages -
the remote server will automatically index
all new/updated pages and keep the index up-to-date.
-
No load on your server resources
Search engines require significant resources,
such as CPU time during searching and indexing,
disk space etc. Outsourcing to a remote server
moves the load away from you. In addition,
these servers are usually in data centers
with excellent connectivity and administration
-
Minimal initial investment
Instead of paying for a search engine up front,
you can pay a small monthly fee. Some services
are free, showing advertising with the search
results.
-
Easy to switch
If you aren't happy with your search service,
it's easy to switch to another.
The Flip Side - Disadvantages
Like all good things in life - this
service also comes with riders you need to be
aware of.
-
Unwanted Advertising or pay
every month You must pay every month or allow
your searchers to see other people's advertising
-
Less control over indexing
If your data changes frequently (hourly or
daily), most of these services will not index
that often.
-
Dependent on outside service
If the service's search engine gets busy,
it may delay responses for your site, and
there's not much you can do.
-
Less capacity
The remote search services have a page limit,
although some will index hundreds of thousands
of pages.
-
Less freedom of choice
Each search engine has its own special features,
but you have more choices if you plan to run
your own engine. For example, some have problems
indexing password-protected areas, or word
processing file formats, adding a thesaurus
or a spellchecker, etc.
-
Multi-site indexing
Most remote services allow you to index just
the sites you control (though there are exceptions).
With a local search engine, you can index
other sites and create a public search portal.
How
to start
Whether you opt for local search
engine or remotely hosted one - you must first
complete few housekeeping tasks to prepare your
website. We shall discuss the tasks in next issue
as also a review of available Internet resources.
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