Re: Search Engine

siddiqui athar shiraz (assiddiq@coewl.cen.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:44:59 -0500 (CDT)

> > the usual answer: Harvest for indexing, storage/retrieval, user interface
> > (WWW)
> > if necessary MOMSpider for autonomous resource gathering ('go-and-grab-em
> > robot' <
> i tried harvest let it index my site configured it for my web server under
> apache.... after it finished i figured if i typed in say chat or real estate
> it would pull a list of pages located on the specific server that i told it
> to index on those subjects..... NOT.....! it was setup correct to do the
> searches and did query but either queried wrong or i indexed it wrong ...
> like i knew what i was doing in the first place..... NOT.....! any help is
> much appreciated even after reading the harvest docs.... im still
> clueless....

Excite for Web servers ... is quite robust ... but interface wise it is
not very flexible .

I would recommend Swish ; less than 15 min of configuring ... you write
the interface ... ( simple CGI script that control command line arguments
and then outputs in ur custom format ... all DB and search Alg. stuff is
taken care of ) that will also look as thu u really did ( note: look )
something . With excite you get all sorts of confidance crap ... and
concept search ... and those excite symbols at the edge ... and although
searching is good the interface is like a template .

Swish code is in C ( I think ) and modifiable ...

Now my own request ... I am yet to find a single worthwhile site that
teaches you the from the basics ( basics of bot writing not programming )
to the advanced stuff in robot writing. No proper documentation with
sample source code ... it is quite disconcerting ... and compels me to
get those 40 dollar books ( which the day I do or someone else is
forced to do ...... is the day the internet commences to decline )

Yours

Shiraz