Add a Site Search Engine

Disclaimer

Please note we do not endorse any companies listed on this site and people using them do so at their own risk and we take no responsibility for any problems that may occur in doing so. (See also legal notices) We strongly advise you look at several different companies

We've included this here as we're frequently asked about this by site visitors.

When your site is up and running many of you want to add a site search engine to help visitors get find what they're looking for. We use one and here it is

There are 2 ways of doing this

You could learn complex server sided scripting code & create your own site search engine. Even if you did this, you'd need to make sure your site is hosted by a company willing to let you run this on their server.

Alternatively you could let someone else do the hard work.

There are a few companies who provide free site indexing and search facilities for your site. All have to do you do is cut and paste a wee bit of HTML code into your pages.

When you sign up to them they index your site (make sure those <meta> tags are up to speed) and then provide you with a bit of code to add onto your site

This sets up the search box form on your page

When someone uses this, the input is sent to the site search companies server. Using the gathered info it will display a response page of your searches much like a search engine but for your site A range of companies do this.

We uses atomz (http://www.atomz.com) to provide our search facility.

Altough this company normally offers a charged service, itwill provide a simpler search tool for sites of less than 500 pages for free with no adverts (1)!!

Other companies like Freefind (www.freefind.com/) offer a free service with a larger 32MB initial limit ~ about 3,000 pages (2) but you'll need to put up with advertising for this privilege

Bravenet (http://www.bravenet.com/) is another free option. They also provide a wide range of free services from guestbooks to password protected areas.(3). You'll need to put up with ads

All of the above provide some form of customisation so that the page has the look and feel of your site

(1) Information described on the http://www.atomz.com/ website Feb 2002
(2) Information described on the http://www.freefind.com/ website Feb 2002
(3) Information described on the http://www.bravenet.com/ website Feb 2002

The bulk of this is modified from an article elsewhere on the site and is created with the kind permision of it's author A.Duncan

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(Added © 2002)