Site search tools

[Scooter24]

I'm currently using google to implement a site search function, which allows people to search my site. The result is a Google page with results.

Today I ran into a site which uses a quite sophisticated search function, which generates a page with results on-site (not Google). The piece of HTML code the use for the form is this:

<!--webbot bot="Search" S-LINK S-FIELDS=""
S-INDEX="All" S-DSN="default" TAG="BODY" S-Text="Search for: " I-Size="50"
S-Submit="Start Search" S-Clear="Reset" S-TimestampFormat="%m/%d/%y" b-useindexserver="0" startspan --><form action="_vti_bin/shtml.exe/search.htm" method="POST"><input type="hidden" name="VTI-GROUP" value="0"><p><b>Search for: </b><input type="text" name="search" size="50" value></p><p><input type="submit" value="Start Search"><input type="reset" value="Reset"></p></form><!--webbot bot="Search" endspan i-checksum="8207" -->

Does anybody have an idea what software tool they use for the search function?

[oilman]

That's from Microsoft FrontPage - needs to be on a server with FP extensions installed.

[Scooter24]

I see. My server supports Frontpage extensions, although I don't use Frontpage myself.

More in general, what PHP-based site search tools exist? I'd like if possible to restrict the search to one directory.

[oilman]

whole bunch to choose from at hotscripts [hotscripts.com]

[Reflect]

I've found FDSE has been a great local one to use. I also believe Brett is using it here.

Brian

[jamison]

Hi I am currently looking for a good search solution too. So far phpDig has been the easiest to setup. Here are a few suggestions:
-phpDig.net (free)
-htDig (free)
-Thunderstone Webinator (free for 1000 pages)

There are also a lot of hosted search solutions that start around $20/month. FusionSearch is the first that comes to mind. I think several of these search hosts use Webinator.

Jamison

[httpwebwitch]

I shopped around for weeks, and found that the best site search package (for a reasonable price) is one made by Heathco Software. It's PHP with a MySQL index. I had to make a few modifications to make it behave as I wanted, but it's very easy to set up & use. google for Heathco Search and you'll find it.

[MatthewHSE]

Does anyone know a good PHP or perl site search, preferably free, that has the following features:

- Excludes specified directories/files
- Ignores "short" or "common" words
- Whole-word matching only
- Results sorted by relevancy
- Results show relevancy in percent (or graph, etc.)
- Ignores HTML; searches only visible text
- Indexes .html and .cgi pages
- Indexes only internal links (or specified domains)
- Ability to build several indexes which can be selected for individual or collective searching by marking checkboxes on an "Advanced Search" page
- Customizable results page

If anyone does know of a script like that, preferably PHP, I'd love to know about it! I'm looking for a site-search and those mentioned above are the most needed features for my site.

Thanks,

Matthew

[jamison]

phpDig.net does most of these. I'm not sure about this one though "- Ability to build several indexes which can be selected for individual or collective searching by marking checkboxes on an "Advanced Search" page "

Jamie

[bcolflesh]

ht://Dig is the best free solution (as mentioned before) - some caveats with the current version of phpDig:

1. Reduced functionality and general pain to use in safe mode

2. Indexes based on IP, not file system - unusable through NAT

[TheDoctor]

Check out Fluid Dynamics, who advertise "Freeware and shreware Prel scripts including search engine"

- although not, apparently, an HTML spellchecker :-)