Alternative to Google Site Search

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1

Hi

My client would like us to improve the basic homegrown search facility we set up on their website.

I thought about using Google Site Search but for reasons of their own they block most of the www web from their office systems and are not happy to whitelist Google. And they will probably feel the same way about Yahoo.

Is their an alternative Google Site Search from a lower profile provider?

I’m not much of a php programmer so it has to be both good and pretty straightforward to set up. (I can deal with Google Site Search fairly happily.)

Best Regards
Pete

2

Many Content Management Systems (CMSes) have a search function that searches the contents of the site’s database and returns the results. It rarely, if ever, works as well as Google search, though.

Is the site based on a CMS?

3

Hello Ralph

Thanks for your input.
Yes the site is a bespoke cms - php/mysql - devloped by a programmer who has since moved on.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/43nyrjw

4

Hm, the site search you have now seems pretty good to me. It works better than the search on a lot of other sites.

I guess, if needed, that you could develop the current search further. Perhaps you need to get an experienced developer to look at it.

5

I use the Fluid Dynamics Search Engine, found at http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/.
It’s really easy to setup, customize, and add pages, with a spider… Also, there is an auto-install option where it installs it for you. duh

6

I guess, if needed, that you could develop the current search further. Perhaps you need to get an experienced developer to look at it.

Thanks Ralph. Good point.

Fluid Dynamics Search Engine

Thanks Andy. I’ll have a look.

7

Anything better than Fluid Dynamics ?

8

Well, you could always take the base source code and develop it further.

9

I’ve never used it, but there’s always Apache Solr to link up Lucene.

My experience with Lucene is limited to a bit of Java and almost exclusively on .NET, but it’s fantastic when you can get it working. If you’re dealing with a small site it’s definitely overkill, but if you really want a great search function on your site then you can’t really go wrong.

10

Sphinx?

11

Sphinx or Fluid Dynamics is better ?

12

Fluid Dynamics? thanks i have to check this