Site Search w/o Google

[JohnP]

Hi,

I was interested in whether anyone else is using an alternative method to search their own site(s), rather than the Google Custom Search.

I have been coding my own search application in order to avoid using it (so I can keep my own search terms data), and I think I have something that will work for my (coming soon) web site using mySQL full text search and PHP. I've gotten it to "spider" (so to speak, it would need work to work on any other site), search, return results, and log search terms.

Is anyone else using another solution and/or coding your own? Do you think adding affiliate links/advertising would be effective for some of your known targeted key phrases (if not done on overdrive like some search engines do)? Thanks!

John

[akirk]

We have our own search systems... some thoughts
- if your website is database driven then running searches straight on the database is more efficient than creating content - then spidering it - then indexing it - then running the search on that index...
- use table based data to create verticals for searching - allowing the client a much more structured result
- if you are not familiar with it - learn good database design / table construction / get into database engines / etc. - it makes a huge difference to efficiency / hits on the server / speed of response...
- learn about stop words - these are words within MySQL which are excluded from a search (and / the / it / etc. etc.) - we have our system coded to have these turned off on the database - we then have a table with them in and the search uses this instead - this allows our clients to set their own stop words - useful if their business includes words which are otherwise common and would be excluded...
- learn about the different ways in which PHP and MySQL work together... to build search logic - there are surprises and areas which seem logical but are not!

Have fun!

Alasdair

[JohnP]

Thanks Alasdair,

That is definitely some good information. I've been working on wrapping my head around a lot of these points. I have particularly been working with the stop words portion of things as of late, and that is a really good suggestion as I have some three-letter words that need to be allowed and some words that will probably hit the "over 50%" when using the default settings.

Thanks again!

John

[monty]

I was interested in whether anyone else is using an alternative method to search their own site(s), rather than the Google Custom Search.

I mostly use Sphinx Search for medium to large sites. It can index anything in a MySQL DB ( and supports other data sources too ) - you just tell it the tables and columns you want to be considered in a search. As it acts against a database, you don't need to do any spidering.

Theres a number of other options like Solr and Elasticsearch as well, if you have more complex needs, but I don't have much experience with those.

[crabfoot]

Sphinx search?

The sexual life of the camel is stranger than anyone thinks
At the height of the mating season, he would try to cover the sphinx.
But the sphinx's abdominal sphincter becomes clogged with the sands of the Nile
Which accounts for the hump on the camel, and the sphinx's inscrutiable smile.


Too much Elijah ... or not enough?

[Mikl]

I know this is a (slightly) old thread, but I'm new around here, and have only just had a chance to join in.

You might like to consider FreeFind as an alternative to Google and the like. I have been using it on my company website for eight years, and it seems to work well. The free version is ad-supported (just one or two text ads on your results page); there is a also a paid-for ad-free version. The main thing in its favour is that it is very low maintenance: just add a bit of code to your pages, and forget about it. Also, I like the fact that you can see each of the searches that your visitors make, and what the result were. The main negative is .... it's not Google. I use Google's search on some of my other sites, simply because it's so well known.

Mike