Adding a Search Engine to Your Site Is Easier than You Think

Navigating a Web site without a search engine is like trying to drive a car in the dark without headlights. Though driving sans headlights may be considerably more dangerous, a site without a search engine can leave your visitors in the dark, making it nearly impossible for them to find the information they need.

Many organizations still don't have a search feature on their sites. Perhaps you're convinced that setting up search functionality is a complicated process or that it's just too costly for your organization.

The good news is that putting a search engine on your site is quite easy and affordable — you can even add one for free. There are plenty of options to choose from when it comes to site search tools. Despite what you might think, you don't need to know complex programming languages. All that's really required is a basic knowledge of HTML.

A search engine isn't necessary on small sites where visitors can use the navigation system to quickly get to each important section of the site.

We'll walk through the steps to putting a remote search engine on your Web site.

So, Who Needs a Search?

The first step to installing a search is figuring out whether your site needs a search in the first place.

There isn't a hard and fast rule about what kind of site requires a search. Sites that contain comprehensive information on one or many topics as well as large or growing sites where new information is being added on a regular basis could benefit from a search engine. It's difficult to define just what constitutes a large site, but use your judgement to determine whether a search engine would make articles and information more easy to find.

A search offers the following benefits:

• It allows your visitors to quickly find what they're looking for.
• Many users will go directly to the search function if it exists.
• Search enhances your site's navigation by giving users an alternate way to find information: If they're stuck with your navigation system, they'll turn to your search function.
• By knowing what your visitors are searching for, you'll be able to give them more of what they really want.

Types of Search Tools

There are three main types of search implementations:

Installed search engines: Installed search engines consist of search engine software (such as CGI programs and Perl scripts) that must be installed on your server. There are many free search engine scripts available on the Web. You can ask your Web host about putting one on your site because you'll need to have CGI or PHP access on your server.

Database search tools: On sites where content is stored entirely on a database, you'll need a database search tool to find information contained within it. This type of search engine usually needs to be custom-built for your database site by the programmer or company that built the database.

Remote (hosted) search engines: This article focuses on remote search engines (also called hosted). These search engines are not installed on your server. Rather, they are hosted on the server of the company providing the search service.

After you sign up to a search service (see the list below for recommendations), the search company sends its indexing robot (or "search spider") to crawl all of the pages on your site. This process creates an index of your site, which is then stored on the company's server.

When a visitor enters a query into your search box, it's sent to the remote search engine. The search engine then creates a search results page, which shows all of the pages on your site that matches the user's query.

You can easily set up a hosted search engine by inserting just a few lines of HTML code onto your Web site. The HTML code, which is supplied by the company providing your search, creates a search box and a search button, which points to the company's search.

Advantages of Using a Hosted Search Service:

• Easy set up: Hosted search engines can be set up quickly and easily.
• No software to install: Since the search engine is located on the company's server, there's no software to install or scripts to configure.
• Easy administration: Many of these services provide a convenient user interface, which allows you to easily control the various functions of the search engine.
• Minimal costs: You pay a low monthly fee to use a hosted search service. Or you can use a free service (which usually shows the company's logo or advertising on the search results page).
• Easy to switch: If you find that you're not satisfied with your search service, switching to another service is easy.

Hosted Search Service Providers

Hosted search services come in two flavors: free and paid. There are many free, hosted search services available. Most of these services remain free because they put ads on the search results or near the search bar in exchange for using their services. Some offer reporting tools and some will index only a specific number of pages.

Below is a list of the most popular search tools:

• Atomz Express Search (formerly Atomz; free, with ads)
• FreeFind (free, with ads)
• Google (free, with ads)
• PicoSearch (free, with ads)
• Master.com (free, and only bears an ad for Master.com)
• Zoom Search Engine (free, no ads)
• whatUseek siteLevel Basic (free, with ads)
• Fusion Bot (free, with ads on results pages)

To get a feel for the way these and other search engines work, visit SearchTools.com's test page to compare them.

Should you decide that you'd like to remove ads, index more pages, or have access to more features, most services have a paid option as well.

Key Considerations in Hosted Search

Page Limits: Search tools have a maximum number of pages they will index. As you might guess, the paid search services offer higher page limits than the free ones. Pricing is based on the number of pages in your site so the more pages on your site, the more it will cost per year.

Indexing Frequency: In order for the search engine to be effective, your site must be indexed by the search engine at periodic intervals. How frequently (daily, weekly, or monthly) the search engine performs an index of your site varies depending upon the search tool. If you add new information to your site on a weekly basis, then look for a tool that does indexing at least once a week. This is important because the search results will only be as current as the last scheduled index of your site.

Template Customization: Choose a search tool that gives you the flexibility of customizing the search results page to match the look and feel of your site. Most of these services allow you to tailor the results page using HTML (e.g., to customize colors, navigation, graphics, and so on). While some tools allow complete customization, others are much less flexible.

Document Indexing: Many sites contain resources that are posted in various document formats such as PDF (.pdf) or Word (.doc) documents. Not all search tools can index these document formats. If your site contains such documents, choose a tool that can index these file types.

Quality of Search: Your site's content and structure play an important role in determining the effectiveness of search. Different algorithms are used to match the user's search terms to the search results. You can set up the free version of these services on your site and compare their search results.

Support: Although you can set up these tools easily, it's good to know that help is available should you need it. Different levels of support are offered, ranging from no support at all to 24-hour a day phone and email support.

Usage Reports: It's always good to know what your visitors are searching for. Even the most basic reporting tools will show you this information.

Make Your Site Search-Engine Friendly

The indexing robot won't be able to effectively index your site if the pages are not search-engine friendly. Below you'll find some basic techniques you can use to optimize your site for large public search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. Use these same methods to prepare your site for its own internal search engine:

• Add titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords tags to all your pages: Having good HTML titles, keywords, and descriptions will help improve the quality and presentation of the search results.

• Ensure that your pages contain visible HTML text and links: While indexing robots can pick up basic HTML text and links, they are unlikely to follow links in Flash and Shockwave sites, DHTML layers, framesets, JavaScript menus, and image maps

  In those cases, you'll have to give the indexing robot an alternate navigation system to follow. There are two ways to do this: Insert navigational links in the "NOSCRIPT" and "NOFRAMES" tags (without quotes) or create a site map page that contains all of the links found on your site.

• Ensure that all your links are working properly: To check your links, you can use a link-checking robot such as LinkScan or a service like NetMechanic .
• Use the "META ROBOTS" tag to specify which pages in your site you don't want indexed: Indexing robots will ignore all pages that contain the following tag: meta name=robots content=noindex.

Additional Tips for a Better Search:

1. Create a search box with a type-in field, rather than a link to a search page.
2. Make the search box wide enough to contain typical search terms.
3. Place the search box on every page of the site, either at the top center or top right-hand side of each page. (Keep the search box in the same spot on every page so users know where to look for it.)
4. Limit the number of search results to about 50 results per page.

Regardless of the tool you choose, you'll be doing your visitors a great service by providing them with a search capability. Rather than asking site visitors to dig through menus and search fruitlessly for information, providing a search is a way to locate the information your visitors want.

Other Resources

• SearchTools.com
  A comprehensive list of all kinds of search tools, product reviews, and articles.
• Alder Consulting: Site Search Engines on a Shoestring