| This article describes some of the possibilities for creating a
search facility for your website or Intranet. A website search facility is essential for
allowing website users to find the content they are looking for on your website.
Use Google's Tools
Google has a few useful tools for creating website search facilities. Its webmaster tools section allows you to create
a custom search facility for your website. An example is the search facility on our
software documentation portal (http://www.softwaredocumentation.info/).
The downside to using Google is that you have to accept Google branding on your search
results pages, which might not be acceptable for your particular website. It also relies
on Google cataloguing and indexing the pages in your website. It is entirely possible that
Google won't have indexed all the pages in your website. It also has the limitation in
that the Google search won't allow users to search for up to date content, which could be
a problem if your website is regularly updated or has time critical content such as news
stories. Additionally, the Google search facility cannot be used on websites that aren't
catalogued by Google, so it won't be of use for corporate Intranets and Extranet
situations.
An alternative is to use Google's range of search appliances, such as the Google Mini
Search Appliance. These products can produce higher quality website search facilities and
can be used in Intranet/Extranet scenarios. The downside is that being hardware based it
requires a certain level of technical expertise to get it up and running, and it may not
be possible to use this type of solution if your website is hosted by a 3rd party company.
Indexing Services/Index Server
Websites hosted on the Microsoft Windows platform have the option of using the Windows
Indexing Service to provide website search facilities. The cataloguing and indexing of
website content is easily configurable through the Microsoft Management Console graphical
user interface. Once configured, the Indexing Service requires little maintenance, and the
catalogue can be automatically updated to reflect the changes to website content.
Once the catalogue has been populated with website content, it is possible to write web
pages that allow a website user to query the search facility and display matching search
results. These pages can be written in a range of technologies, including classic ASP as
well as .NET Framework languages such as VB.NET or C#. Because the search facility can be
completely custom written it is possible to customise it to the exact requirements of the
website.
Indexing Services have a number of disadvantages. Firstly, it catalogues through the
file system, so it is of limited use for websites that have a lot of database driven
dynamic content. Secondly it has no web crawling capabilities, so it is unable to
catalogue the content of remote websites or those hosted on non Microsoft Windows
platforms. Our Indexing Service Companion
product extends the basic functionality of Indexing Services by providing a web crawling
facility and the ability to index database content.
JavaScript website search facilities
Our product The
Website Utility can produce a JavaScript based website search facility for small
websites. This type of search facility is straightforward to implement, and requires no
knowledge of server-side scripting (e.g. ASP or PHP) to implement. Read more about The
Website Utility's facilities for creating website
JavaScript based search engines.
Server-side website search facilities
Using server-side scripting languages such as ASP and ASP.NET can be better than using
a client-side scripting language such as JavaScript because the resulting search facility
can be used in all web browsers, regardless of whether JavaScript has been enabled. The Website
Utility is able to create basic search facilities for websites using Microsoft's ASP
or ASP.NET scripting environments. The search facility is fully standalone, and does not
require other products such as the Windows Indexing Service. Find out how to create
an ASP website search engine or an ASP.NET
search engine.
Search Engine Builder
Another solution for website search facilities is to use the Search
Engine Builder product. This product makes it straightfoward to build a customised
website search facility without requiring any programming knowledge. Adding a search
facility to your website will allow users to find the information or products they are
looking for much more easily, which could allow you to recoup the costs of the product in
a matter of days!
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