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What is a Web Site Search Tool
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Guide to Choosing & Using
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Search Tools NewsNews of interest to search implementers including product changes and additions, notes from conferences, etc. |
Overviews, Reviews, Links, and SurveysIncludes articles and books providing general site search information, and those with more specific product reviews. |
Search Tools Product ListingsAlphabetical List or divided by platform: Java, Mac, Perl, Unix, and Windows; see also Remote Search Hosting Services, Code Libraries and Site Directory Creation Tools |
Related TopicsInformation Retrieval, Knowledge Management, XML and Search , Metadata, Information Architecture, Intranets, Web-wide Search, and more. |
| This site provides information, news and advice about web site searching technology. It is maintained by iFetchIT.com as a service to the Web community. We welcome your comments and suggestions at web@ifetchit.com. We are also available for search tools needs analysis, competitive analysis, search tools installation and more: for information sees the Services page or send email to consult@ifetchit.com. | |
SearchButton.com has announced their "zero-footprint" site search service, based on a proprietary robot spider and the Verity search engine technology. The service will provide both basic and advanced search forms, and extensive administration logs for analysis. Like all remote site search services, it is compatible with Web servers on all platforms. The service is now in beta test for free: there will be a free version supported by advertising, a basic version (cost not yet determined) and additional services available. [1999/02/11]
Wouldn't it be great if there was a simple way to navigate search results matching pages? Peterme (Peter Merholz) discusses how he helped the greeting-card store Sparks.com design a search system where the result context is carried into the detailed pages. After searching and clicking on one of the thumbnail pictures that make up the results list, you see a large picture of the card but also a small area entitled "NOT QUITE RIGHT?" which shows thumbnails of the previous and next cards, and has a button to return you to the results list. This is an innovative and clever solution to a perennial problem! Peterme.com is a trove of interesting articles and links -- I've used some of them to update the Information Architecture page. [1999/02/11]
You may want to create a directory of pages, such as those found on Yahoo or Snap, for your local site, intranet, or section of the Web. Directories allow site users to understand the scope and focus of the available information, and "drill down" from the most general to the specific. At each level, the category names and organization provide instant feedback to users. Rather than a list without any context, such as the results of a search, a set of category headings show how the page fits into the universe of information that you are presenting. Many sites should include both directories and search to accommodate many styles of information seeking.
There are a number of applications that can help you do this, although the amount of automation can vary. Some programs simply allow anyone to manually add a URL to a specific category by submitting a site. Others allow catalogers to create sophisticated rules to specify certain words and phrases that will place a page in a category. Still others attempt to automate the entire process, grouping pages into topics based on the contents.
For more information, see the new page on Directory Creation Tools.
Avi Rappoport gave a presentation to BayCHI (the ACM's Computer-Human Interface group) in the SF Bay Area on January 12, 1999. She covered the issues of designing the search form, the results pages (including no-results issues), results listings, search quality, information architecture and general user experience with search. The presentation pages, with live links to example sites, are available, along with an excellent summary of the talk by Howard Tamler.
Remote searchers will crawl your site and store your info in an index on their server. When someone enters a query in the search form on your site, the link points at the search engine host. It receives the query, does the lookup in the index, formats the results, and sends them back in an HTML form with links directly to the pages on your site.
Some services provide simple, straightforward searches, while others offer powerful advanced search functions such as proximity operators (NEAR) and date-range searching. Some are free and supported by advertising, others charge by the page, by the search or monthly.
Remote search services do not require any programming or local access to the web server. They act like standard robot spiders, following links on your site, rather than using the local file system. For hosted sites with limited server access, these services are an excellent option.
We expect to have a full comparative report on remote site hosting services in February: in the meantime, you can try them out on our search test page.
Many of you may be interested in adding searching and text retrieval to your own applications. We've started a listing page for search source code, beginning with the excellent Findex package from LexTech and the dtSearch source package. You can also look at the open source search applications (listed on the same page), but be sure to check the license terms before including the code in your own programs.
Verity has reported a third quarter of profits, Open Text is doing a deal with Nortel after failing to take over PC Docs/Fulcrum, which is partnering with ChiliSoft to integrate Chili!ASP and CyberDOCS. And all their stock is up.
Take the Search Tools survey and help us get a picture of your web site -- and why you are (or are not) installing site search tools. Intranet sites are welcome too. It's a chance to explain what you have found that works and what doesn't. We'll write up a big article in February about the results, and will send you a copy of the report directly if you so choose.
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