web search engine?

[Daniel E Singer]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Patti Johnson wrote:

 > If I'm not in the right place to post this or if there's another
 > place, please correct/direct...
 >
 > We're looking for a search engine for our campus web.  We have
 > been/are using IIS' index server but would like a little more.  In
 > the past, we'd used Excite, until we migrated to an Alpha Win/NT
 > box, which wasn't supported by excite; and since then, i can't find
 > info on obtaining a license for their formerly-free search engine.
 >
 > What experience have you all had?  Recommendations?  Suggestions?

Google searches work well and take very little of your time to set up
and maintain.  All you need is something like this in your web page:

	<form method="GET" action="/cgi-bin/google_search">Search:
	<input name="lookup" size="15" maxlength="255"></form>

And a CGI script something like this:

	#!/usr/local/bin/perl
	#
	# google_search: package a query to send to Google with "site:{foobar}.edu"
	#
	# this script is a rewrite (with help of P.Reynolds) of `av_search',
	# which is borrowed from OIT, we'll give it back one day :)
	#
	# adapted by D.Singer, 3/2000

	# from ucsd.edu originally; provided as-is with no warranty of any kind

	($lookup = $ENV{QUERY_STRING}) =~ s/lookup\=//;

	print "Location: http://www.google.com/search?q=$lookup+site%3Acs.duke.edu\n\n";

	exit;

Of course, substitute your site for "cs.duke.edu"...

You can try this out at:  http://www.cs.duke.edu/

-Dan

-- 
Daniel E. Singer, System Administrator
Dept. of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham NC 27708 USA
	"Non cognosco. In hoc tantum laboro."