Google Site Search

Is it worth adding for internal searches?

[MarciaG]

We've just developed a site based on a template from an external source. They spent a lot of money hiring a specialist to index their site and create keywords for internal searching, but the basic functionality of the on-site search is just a string search.

We need to improve the search capabilities on our site. We sell maps and right now are data are organized so that if someone does a keyword search for "Dallas Texas" they aren't finding anything because the string search doesn't know that "TX" is the same as Texas. For the same reason if you search for "hiking England" you won't find "Walks in Cornwall".

We're starting on the rather daunting task of adding synonyms and other informaiton as keywords to 15000+ products, but I'm wondering if signing up for "Google Site Search" or "Yahoo site Search" would solve at least the basic synonyms like TX and Texas.

What's the downside of using these search funcitons? Do they work the way I want them to?

Thanks for any help anyone can give.

[Pibs]

Generally there's nothing wrong with them aside from 2 points

1. The free version, not even sure if there is a paid one, will show adverts related to the search just like the normal Google. This could lead to people wandering off.

2. The user can also easily select 'search the web' and again vanish.

If you have an account I believe you get paid for people clicking the ads but unless that's your business model you won't make as much as the sale lost, obviously.

It is such a vastly easier solution that a custom job though that if you need search, yeah the G box is ultra simple, cheap/free and people already trust it and know how to use it.

One point I learnt the hard way but would have learnt sooner or later anyway - make sure every page has a relevant and sane title.

Otherwise the user is shown a long list of

domain.com
something something keyword something

domain.com
a word, keyword, another word

domain.com
a few words then keyword then another word

sorta thing.

So give them titles they'd want to click, not 'domain.com', ie

"Info on UK hiking maps"

You'll also need to ensure your site has good HTML so Google can index all of it, otherwise all they'll see is other people's ads.

By the way, a lot of people looking for maps will be hoping for downloadable versions, if you don't do that I'd consider looking into it rather than throwing money at a bespoke search system that is worse than useless if it doesn't find what the searcher wants.

For most people if the search this site thing doesn't find it, then obviously it's not on that site. They won't look further. Somewhat on topic, I'm sure you're familiar with the expression "An inaccurate map is worse than no map at all" - same applies to search boxes.

They won't think "Well I'm sure it's here, they just have a crappy search system.."

P.