...freefind.com have sprung up. Register with them and for the princely sum of nothing at all they provide you with a search engine for your site. Either they would send you or you download a few lines of html to paste into your page, and off you go. Quick, easy, and the results can be very impressive. ... Read review
Advantages: Well specified engine Disadvantages: no searching in document files, unclear level of page support, advertising on results pages
Freefind.com seems to offer a good product, but be clear that it's what you want. And be aware that some of the competition also scores highly in terms of flexibility, and in being really free...
It's easy to put a high quality whole-web search on your webpage. But a site search is a different matter.
Of course, you may not *want* a search engine, but trust me, if your site is any size at all, it will help visitors ... ...searches.
The Freefind.com site claims that the free version isn't cut down, but a little examination indicates that there is an initial limit of 32Mb. Once this would have been a large amount for a non-business website, but times change. It's also not clear if they are refering to the total size of all the files on your site, or just to the searchable webpages. If the latter then this suddenly hardly seems like a restriction at all. ... more
Freefind.com seems to offer a good product, but be clear that it's what you want. And be aware that some of the competition also scores highly in terms of flexibility, and in being really free...
It's easy to put a high quality whole-web search on your webpage. But a site search is a different matter.
Of course, you may not *want* a search engine, but trust me, if your site is any size at all, it will help visitors to your site, at the very least by showing that you care. And even you may find it useful on occasion, as you try for hours to remember just where you filed your fabulous article on bonsai kitten husbandry
Once upon a time, your only option was to do it yourself. Fine if you were a wizard, and could run it on your site. Java and javascript widened the options, especially as you could pick up freebies from the web, but the results weren't particularly impressive.
More recently, sites like www.freefind.com have sprung up. Register with them and for the princely sum of nothing at all they provide you with a search engine for your site. Either they would send you or you download a few lines of html to paste into your page, and off you go. Quick, easy, and the results can be very impressive. Some sites offer additional facilities such as Freefind's automatic sitemap and 'What's New?' pages.
But before you take the gift horse, be sure to look it in the mouth!
First of all, check how the search engine works on its own dedicated site. If it's a dog on its home ground it'll probably be an er... dog on your site too. How quick is it? How advanced a search does it allow? Does it index all the documents types on your site? Do you care?
Next, determine the extent to which the product you receive will be a cut-down version of the real thing. How often will it 're-spider' to take account of changes in your site? Is there any restriction on the number of pages or file volume that you can index?
And finally, while we're talking about a free product, what's in it for them? Do they only ask for you to credit their search engine? Are they going to fill your pages with huge chunks of advertising? Do you care?
Applying the 'how it works' tests to Freefind.com, I have to admit that the basic engine seems to work quickly and well. Searching seems to be restricted to web pages, with nothing sophisticated like searching within pdf documents. Although I haven't tried it out myself yet, there are plenty of useful ways in which you can tweak the searching within your site, with multiple start points and selective suppression of the 'robots' tags used to exclude pages from searches.
The Freefind.com site claims that the free version isn't cut down, but a little examination indicates that there is an initial limit of 32Mb. Once this would have been a large amount for a non-business website, but times change. It's also not clear if they are refering to the total size of all the files on your site, or just to the searchable webpages. If the latter then this suddenly hardly seems like a restriction at all. Having said this, a quick look at the 'paying search' specs shows that it considers <250 pages to be a small site, which I'd expect to run very much less than 32Mb of html. Freefind *do* suggest that they will give frequent and liberal increases to this limit, but it's difficult to know quite what that means.
On to the final point, Freefind.com does require you to carry advertising. It's not quite clear what they require of you here, and I'm afraid I was discouraged from continuing further by the combination of this and the 32Mb limit. Having said this, from what I saw on-site, I expect that the ads will be reasonably low key. They may slow your site down with irritating animated graphics. Freefind are at pains to make it clear that the advertising will not include porn etc. Advertising may not bother you at all, and I don't think Freefind are being unreasonable here. You can of course pay money to get a search without the ads.
Whatever, Freefind does look a good product. However, it doesn't search across all file types, the free version *is* a cut-down version in some senses, and it does carry advertising. You may wish to check out the other players in the same game.
This is a really good search engine to add to your website and it’s all free. You can either get a search engine free or select an ad free. The best thing is that it only takes a few minutes and anyone can use the search engine. What will you get?
You'll get high speed, high availability, hosted search technology from the company that pioneered the field. There's nothing to download or install on your server. There’s three simple steps, ... ...on the button and you’re done. The search engine itself is very compact:
There is no fixed page limit, it also comes with daily re-indexing and with super-fast set-up. It also reports track visitors' searches. It also comes with complete customisation.
It also has extended feature such as:
Language support -- works with many different languages
Search subsections -- visitors can search all of your site or a subsection
Automatic site map ...
WAD1-2-3 14.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of freefind.com
If you have a web page then you must really visit this site, you can put a free search engine on your site, and by the look of it, it looks very simple. Signing up is so simple three basic steps:
-enter your web site
-email address
-and click the button and it’s done. You get ‘high speed high availability hosted search technology’. There is nothing to download and it takes a matter of minutes. This is a search engine definitely ... ...a search engine put on my site, it caused me no inconvenience and it’s a excellent addition to my site. It comes with a range of extra features:
No fixed page limit
Daily re-indexing
Super-fast setup
Reports track visitors' searches
Advanced site search engine
Complete customization
Multiple starting points
and there’s a business version for all you business people. I think it’s worth giving a go, as you have nothing to ...
india1 04.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of freefind.com
Advantages: HAHA, you must be kidding! Disadvantages: Erm, let me see... 1....
Wanna free search engine on your website? Sounds kinda cool but nobody really has enough stuff on their site to search and once you've signed for it, you have to wait for it then go to all the trouble of copying and pasting it into your site through some note pad which takes ages and even longer to get it right.
The site also has it's own search engine which is probably crapper than the one you get on your site, I typed in tv - nothing. Friends ...
Mopemaster 17.11.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of freefind.com
Advantages: automatic sitemap and what's new page Disadvantages:
Thsi is the best free search engine I've ever seen. I tried to find a search engine for my own website but couldn't find a good one. Most of the search engines just provide a very simple text search function. But Freefind gives you more than that. "What's New" page is created automatically when the content changes on the website. "Sitemap" page is also available by re-indexing my site each time I change the content (You can schedule re-indexing daily, ...
bunniepie 12.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of freefind.com
