Website Search Engines
The Ohlone College website search engine is currently ht://Dig which has been a satisfactory solution since May 2002. I am considering alternatives (open source or free to educational institutions) that can provide additional functionality.
WebGlimpse looks like a good alternative. Here is a comparison of WebGlimpse and ht://Dig. (”The Advanced, or Commercial version of Webglimpse is available free of charge to U.S. Government entities and to most educational users.”)
Google’s free search for universities is also available on our Advanced Search page, but Google indexes our website every 30 days or so. I prefer using a site search program that indexes our website on a schedule I set - which is currently once each day, 7 days a week. This frequent indexing allows new pages and updated content to be included in search results the next day.
Information about site search engines:
- Search Tools for Web Sites and Intranets
- A Comparison of Free Search Engine Software by Yiling Chen. “Abstract: This paper reviews nine search engine software packages -Alkaline, Fluid Dynamic, ht://Dig, Juggernautsearch, mnoGoSearch, Perlfect, SWISH-E, Webinator, and Webglimpse- which are free to users. Their features and functionalities are compared and contrasted with emphasis on searching mechanisms, crawler and indexer features, and searching features.”