Shave the Whales and Free Web Search Engines

[Jeremy Portzer]

On Fri, 2002-10-04 at 13:32, James Brigman wrote:
> Patti, et. al;
> 
> Jeremy did answer your question (and quite well), the only problem is that
> the answer was wrapped around a question you did not ask. Here was Jeremy's
> answer:

Not trying to be nit-picky, but I was really responding to Dan Singer's
response, not Patti's original question.  That's why I was describing
how to improve on the free Internet site search.

> This is the part of his answer to a question you did not ask, which has to
> do with searching the INTERnet, not your INTRAnet) If you look at the very
> bottom of the link he gave, there's one little sentence that answered your
> question, after a bunch of verbage you don't really care about.

I'll submit that Patti did not specify whether her "campus web" applied
to Internet or Intranet web sites.  No point in getting huffy about it! 
The discussion of how to use Google's free search was quite relevant,
especially since she mentioned the use of free tools in the past.

> So: the free "piggyback" Google search, and the cgi script Jeremy posted,
> will do external 'net searches but not internal searches on your intranet
> (which I expect is well protected by your talented system admins there).

Dan Singer was the one who posted the CGI script; I merely posted the
link to Google.

> The for-sale search engine that Jeremy mentioned will do what you need done.
> He said "Search Appliance" because it's a Linux box completely packaged for
> the task you describe. 

Actually, I said "Google Search Appliance" because that's the brand name
that Google gave it. :-)  But yes, it is a completely packaged Linux
box, and definitely in the non-free department.

> Although it costs money, it could be something your
> system admins would enjoy installing, because it comes as a "top to bottom"
> solution: properly configured CPU, RAM and disk, plus the requisite software
> search engine pre-installed on the box. I've never administered one of those
> myself, but that might be a good option if your department is having to beg
> for resources from a central IT group: it would ensure you don't get stuck
> on an old, problematic piece of hardware. Remember, too, a search engine
> doesn't just "live": it needs to be fed and nurtured by an administrator or
> webmaster. The search appliance comes with apps for that purpose.

For what it's worth, I get the idea that the Google Search Appliance is
leased rather than purchased from Google, and you don't get direct
access to the box, other than through the web-based configuration
tools.  This is probably done because Google places high value in the
intellectual property of their search software.

> On the other hand, if you have an admin handy who's just chomping at the bit
> to roll you guys a search engine on generic PC hardware, from top to bottom,
> then this might help: I went to http://www.google.com and did a search with
> the phrase "free web search engine" (and I employed the double quotes to
> make it literal) and one of the things I turned up looked like it might fall
> in the realm of possibility for you: http://www.mnogosearch.org/ This engine
> is GPL'ed, so you seem like the right audience/user for this type of
> product. This is very similar to Itzok's suggestion of the free Java search
> engine to be found at http://www.noviforum.si/ and
> http://www.noviforum.si/press/press.jsp
> 

Good ideas, and thanks for doing some research!  

Regards,
Jeremy