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What Do You Use To Search Your Site?


Samrc

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For a business site that has areas we do not want searched, and have pdf documents we do want searched, what program or script do you recommend?

 

I use freefind on my personal site and it works fine for me. But don't want ads on the business site. And even though I could sign up for business account with them for a low cost, I would also prefer to not have to depend on someone else's site to maintain indexing/spidering. I think long-run, I would rather get a script installed on our website that searches content not just keywords, but if that is not the best way to go, please give me your opinions on it.

 

Thanks for suggestions!

 

-Samantha

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I was going to suggest Atomz but they just started throwing ads in with the results. Now I am looking for a new search engine solution for our business site. Pretty bad when someone is searching your site for information and competitor links appear on your own site. I'll be removing Atomz first thing Monday morning. :)

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EXACTLY the reason we do not want any ads on our searches. Don't want to take the chance that our competitors (larger, with much bigger ad budgets) will appear on our search results.

 

Will check out phpdig....

 

-Samantha

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I have used htdig for many years now, on many sites. It can be confusing to set up the first time you do it, but its absolutely 0 maintenance once its set up, and you can customize the templates fairly easily.

 

You can see a customized version of it in use here:

 

http://www.vactf.org

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Downloaded FastFind Bruce, but won't have time to try it until tomorrow.

Looked at the demo control panel and like it. Allows exclusion of words and subdirectories... just what I want.

 

Also have a question about the license key,

The page says :If you access your website using www, then include the www in your domain. Eg. If you are installing your software to http://www.mywebsite.com/software, then the domain to generate a license key for would be: www.mywebsite.com. "

 

But our site can be reached with and without the www so which should I use?

 

 

Snipe, I did wander over to htdig and have not ruled it out. Nice to know someone uses it and has good experience with it. If I give it a try also, I may ask you for a nudge to get it going. Very nice implementation on http://www.vactf.org

 

 

-Samantha

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Fastfind works great. Only took a little over an hour to install, configure and modify to match the current site. If you follow their installation instructions you should have no problems getting it working quickly.

 

And most of that time was editing every single page on my site to remove the old search engine. I chose to insert a PHP include this time around. Only one file to edit. :)

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I installed it quickly, but ran into a problem with the indexing. It stopped half-way through. I cancelled and it ran again with no problem.

 

I have it testing from a page with a top frame (some of our site has frames, but not all of it). The search response ends up below the top frame. Do you know how to set the target to load the response in a separate window or same window breaking the frame? Haven't delved in too deeply yet but sure there is a way to do it.

 

2 problems for me:

1) I have run some tests and will have to modify many pages to add the HTML code they recommend (ignor code) so my menus don't take up most of the description space.

2) Will not search PDF docs... Not good. Gotta have that since our specs and msds documents are all in pdf format. Might have to wait for next version.... Like the interface a lot, but will have to consider other options for pdf support.

 

-Samantha

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I'm also looking for a search tool, and ht://dig looks good.

 

Question: How can I install it? The requirements on the ht:// site seem to indicate that I need command line access, which obviously I don't have. I assume I'm missing something, but what?

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What PHP insert did you use? Could I see please?

I created a separate file containing the search code and then edited all my pages to bring in that code snippet when being server like this:

 

<?php

include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/isearch.html";

?>

 

And here is the contents for the isearch.html file.

 

 

<!-- Search HTML code -->

Advanced Search

 

 

If you would like to see it PM me and I'll send you the link. Since it's a business site I don't want to break forum guidelines.

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Question: How can I install it? The requirements on the ht:// site seem to indicate that I need command line access, which obviously I don't have. I assume I'm missing something, but what?

Andrew, I am using Fastfind. I never got any further than looking at the ht site.

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Yes, it is currently being offered as a free download. I have incorporated it into a business site and the results pages look just like the rest of the content on the site.

 

I had to create a header & footer HTML files with absolute links to the images and buttons the rest of the site uses. Just plug them into the settings and it builds the results pages with your content surrounding them.

 

There are no ads and the only branding is a text link at the bottom of the results page stating Powered by: Fastfind with a link back to them.

Edited by TCH-Bruce
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I found this one: http://www.searchblox.com/product.html

It's free for up to 1000 documents, and DOES support the searching of PDF files.

 

But it's not PHP. It's JAVA. And I would need someone else with more info on the TCH servers to give me a nod as to whether we could run something like this. It might not work for hosted situations...

 

 

-Samantha

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OK. With all the wonderful options TCH offers, I am not disappointed that this one item is not supported! ;)

 

FastFind is a nice search program and the price is excellent, but will still need a way to search the pdf docs without breaking the bank.

 

-Samantha

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