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The Little Search Engine That CouldTeacher: Thomas Benton Every content rich website needs its own search engine. There are many site search engines to choose from. But, is site search all you need? My website, http://www.webdesignwisdom.com , was conceived as a web design and Internet marketing vortal. I wanted to put together a complete one-stop resource for aspiring Internet entrepreneurs. In order to maintain an index of such websites, it needed the ability to function as a true Internet search engine. I needed something that would allow site submission and spidering of websites. I also needed a site search engine that could handle hundreds of pages on my site. And, I wanted a single search engine that could perform both the on and off-site tasks. After looking into various options, I decided to give the Fluid Dynamics Search Engine (http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/ ) a try. FDSE turned out to be the right choice. The installation was entirely automated from the xav website. Nothing could have been easier. Type in some information to allow access to the root directory and go. After installation, access a handy Admin Control Panel to configure your preferences, customize your pages, create realms, and spider websites of your choosing for adding to your index. You can even push search results from your site (or any domain you choose) to the top if you wish. As with anything worthwhile, you'll have to devote a little time to learning how to manage FDSE. It is fairly intuitive for a semi-technical person. Within a couple of hours I had figured out how to make FDSE do what I wanted it to do. Rather than try to explain all the features here, I suggest that you visit http://www.webdesignwisdom.com and try a few searches for yourself. You can do a site search from the little search box in the left navigation column or search the ebiz vortal directory from the *eBiz InfoSearch* page. Here you have the option of searching *This Site Only* or *[All]* sites in the index. FDSE automated installation deploys the full-featured Shareware version. There isn't any expiration date so you have ample time to learn to use it. Once you've decided that you want to keep FDSE you can elect to register it as the Freeware or thelicensed version. At a one-time fee of $40.00 the full-featured licensed version is one of the Internet's true *bargains*. Find out more about FDSE and see the Admin Control Panel at http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/. The online help is quite adequate and should enable you to solve most problems without additional assistance. FDSE is *the little search engine that could* do everything I wanted and needed for my first *vortal* website. It could be the search engine solution you've been looking for too. About the teacher: |