CGI or MySQL Search Engines?

which is a better engine if I were going to build a PPC site?

[robenochs]

What do you think about all these mom & pop PPC search engines springing up all over the place?

They seem to be everywhere and who know's which ones to join and which not to join other than doing an LP count on them.

After a little investigating of all these PPC sites, I decided, "if you can't figure them out, build your own". or "if you can't beat 'em - join 'em" or something like that?

So anyway, I discovered that a person could buy his very own PPC search engine CGI script 'web site' for about $100 or so. I am also hearing that CGI scipt driven sites are not what you want - you want the MySQL driven search engine.

I have no idea as building my own search engine is very new to me. Nor do I have any programming experience, I'm just a little ole webmaster... SO I am wondering what you guys think of these types of deals out there?

Is MySQL better than CGI and should I build one of these in the first place? Obviously marketing it would be another issue all together and that's not what I'm after here... I'd give you all an example but I'm not sure if it's allowed in this forum.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you guys (and gals) think...

-rob

[DrDoc]

Welcome [webmasterworld.com] to Webmaster World!

Now, it's important to understand two things:

1) CGI refers merely to the method of processing information on the server

2) mySQL refers merely to the method of storing the information

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You need to decide two things:

1) Do you want to use Perl or PHP as the programming language?

2) Do you want to store the information in a database or in text files?

You mentioned that you don't know any programming, so the answer to the first question would be PHP. PHP is much easier to learn for a beginner. Perl is a more powerful language, but for something like what you're talking about - PHP is the way to go. php.net [php.net] is a good place to start.

As for database vs. files... it entirely depends on the amount of information to be stored, how it will be accessed, etc.

It's fairly easy to use plain text files for storing data, even though it's not all that difficult to use a database. MySQL is a powerful, yet easy to use, database; especially in combination with PHP. mysql.com [mysql.com] is the Web site.

Now, if you let us know a little bit more of what you have in mind, I'm sure we can give you some valuable pointers as for where to start. :)

[Fischerlaender]

I'd go with an MySQL based solution because it's more flexible and scalable. There are a lot of web hosting companies offering a webspace with MySQL support, so this shouldn't be the problem.