Can this be done easily?

[ajs83]

I have a site and would like to place a search engine on my site that allows someone to do a search using a search box on my page and searches a number of other sites which then reports it back on one results page.

Example;
I have a site that has newspaper links on it. I want to have a search box on my site that allows users to do a search of all local newspapers. Say they type in murder, the search box would then go out and search any defined sites for the term murder and then generate a results page (on my server) showing all the match stories from the sites searched.

Can this be done easily? Is there a pre-made script out there for such?

Thanks in advance.

[henry0]

If you are only using links to out of your box URL's
you will need to offer any flavor of "Google" or related SE
if the articles reside locally
Yes you can create that kind of search
by using PHP and MySQL if you are a coder
otherwise try some site such as "hotscripts"
they might have sometrhing like "one sixe fits all"
that you will be able to add to your existing site
Good luck!

regards

Henry

[ajs83]

Links would be to external sites.

I don't want to use google, i need something internally.

[uncle_bob]

Have a look at htdig, it may provide the solution you're after, as long as you don't want to search too many sites.

[Richard Overvold]

Sticky me, I may have something you're interested in.

[ajs83]

Done

[ergophobe]

ajs83,

I think you're basically asking for a search of several newspapers that are being served up via third parties. If those newspapers have their own search functions and those search functions have a published API (i.e. documented way to send search queries from an external site), then you might be able write a script that will search the newspapers in question. I would guess that it would have to be tailored to each paper.

Tom

[edited by: ergophobe at 4:30 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2004]

[ajs83]

That's the issue, I know how to do search on one site and display the results on an internal results page, but do not know how to incorporate multiple sites into one search box and results page.

[jatar_k]

ajs83,

What about something like curl [ca3.php.net]?

Connect to one site, retrieve results
Connect to second site, retrieve results
Connect to third site, retrieve results

display results

You would have to watch that something like this didn't become slow due to too many results and handle the possibility that one of the sites didn't respond.

[mincklerstraat]

phpdig would be a bit more lightweight than htdig, might be easier to use too. First check to see how stable it is - been a while since I gave it a spin - see how many sites are listed that use it, and still actually use it.

Probably the short answer to your question is: No, this isn't real easy, not if you have to ask the question. It'll involve learning to program and tweak stuff, unless you can figure out an easy enough interface with phpdig or htdig. That wouldn't go to the other pages on each request - it'd make a search engine out of your site, where the info would have to be stored first. You'd have to set things up to regularly go spider those other sites, and all that data would sit on your server (could be lotsa disk usage).