Hi there,
After looking around, I agree with this comment at InfoToday.
"Remote search services (ASP search engines) are often used for public
sites. The leaders are Atomz, FusionBot, FreeFind, PicoSearch, and
MondoSearch."
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb021118-1.htm
All five appear suitable for you. I have also included SiteLevel,
because it offers good value. If you are not after special features,
they will all do a good job, and I was unable to find any harsh
criticism of any of them. Unfortunately, none offer a statistics
package.
I've ranked them based on what I would use if I ever needed a
straight-forward search tool for one of my sites.
Common Features
---------------
Unless noted, each service includes:
Daily re-indexing
Phrase matching
Simple or boolean searching
Templating of result pages
Customizable
Reports of visitors' searches
Better than 99.5% uptime
Means of excluding pages
Comparison Test Drives
----------------------
Note - they are using the ad-supported, free versions, but they give a
good idea of how similar these products are.
Test drive FreeFind, Atomz and PicoSearch at the site of James S
Huggins
http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/bas1/search_extended.htm
Test drive PicoSearch, FreeFind, Atomz, FusionBot and SiteLevel at
QuickFound
http://quickfound.net/webdev/onsite_search_engines_index.html
Online Reviews
--------------
I was unable to find any recent reviews which compare all the
products. Most are out-dated. This one, by Avi Rappoport is quite
good, in that it describes things you should be looking for in a
hosted solution:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.15/15.12/RemoteSearchServices/
There's also a Search Tools Survey from 2001:
http://www.searchtools.com/surveys/survey04/ratings.html
Cost Comparison
----------------
For your site, the monthly cost would be:
SiteLevel - $4.99 indexed 3 times per week
Atomz - $6 ($75 per year)
FreeFind - $19
FusionBot - $20 indexed weekly
FusionBot - $60 indexed daily
PicoSearch - $21 ($249 per year)
MondoSearch - $99.50
Atomz
-----
http://www.atomz.com/
Search Demo:
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=site&sp-a=sp100017ed&sp-advanced=1&sp-p=any&sp-w-control=1&sp-w=alike&sp-d=custom&sp-date-range=-1&sp-start-month=0&sp-start-day=0&sp-start-year=&sp-end-month=0&sp-end-day=0&sp-end-year=&sp-x=any&sp-c=10&sp-m=1&sp-s=0
"More than 50,000 Web sites are using Atomz Search, including CBS,
Palm, Goretex, and Nature Publishing. The Atomz application network
that underlies Atomz Search performs more than 40 million searches
every month, all with greater than 99.9% availability"
http://www.atomz.com/search/
Extra Features:
Supports 20 languages
Indexes dynamic pages
Indexes HTML, .txt files, Adobe PDF files, Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
MP3 files and Macromedia Flash files
Price:
Pricing ranges from $75 per year for 250 pages to $1,200 per year for
5,000 pages; at higher quantities, the per-page price decreases.
http://www.networkcomputing.com/1120/1120f14.html?ls=NCJS_1120bt
"Atomz Enterprise Search is a good choice for those who prefer to
outsource their server headaches. With a good browser administration
interface and excellent response time from both servers and support
staff, as well as good search reports, the service provides a
flexible, functional search engine for almost any external Web site."
http://www.networkcomputing.com/1120/1120f14.html
Three out of three reviews at DooYoo give Atomz *****
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/internet/internet_sites/atomz_com/
Free Find
---------
http://www.freefind.com/
FreeFind is used by over 100,000 websites. The service has been
running since 1998.
Search Demo:
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=7708956&pageid=r&mode=all&query=scientology
Extra Features:
Automatic site map
PDF indexing
Optional web search
Price (based on paying for a year):
1,000 pages - $19 per month
2,500 pages - $39 per month
5,000 pages - $79 per month
"FreeFind provides reports which tell you the number of searches done
each day, the top 50 keywords, and recent queries and their results.
Reports can be emailed if you wish.
...FreeFind weights your words. Words in titles, metas, and headlines
are given greater weight than normal text; pages with search words in
those three elements are ranked higher than pages where the words are
in normal text.
...The results page has my logo and a banner ad at the top, with the
total number of items found, previous and next links, links to search
tips and the site map, and the search box again, but with buttons for
new search, refine the existing search, and search the Web."
http://www.philipstripling.com/searchEngines05.html
PicoSearch
----------
http://www.picosearch.com
Search Demo:
http://www.picosearch.com/examplesearch.html
Sample Stats:
http://faq.f650.com/search/PicosearchStatistics.htm
Extra Features:
Indexes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF, RTF and Postscript files
Spell Checking
Frames support
Price:
$249/year or $139/6 months for up to 3,000 pages
$499/year for up to 6,000 pages
"Holtz indicates that in the three years he's used PicoSearch, he had
only two or three technical issues and each were resolved in less than
24 hours. In all of the times he used the search engine on Baseball
Almanac, it failed to function only once due to the server's
inaccessibility."
http://www.pcbazar.com.pk/articles/articles01-11-14-1.asp
SiteLevel
---------
http://www.sitelevel.com/services-pro.shtml
Demo Searches:
http://www.sitelevel.com/services-pro-examples.shtml
Extra Features:
Indexes .doc and .pdf
Note: only re-indexes 3 times per week
Price:
250 pages, $4.99 per month
500 - $9.99
1,000 - $19.99
2,500 - $39.99
FusionBot
---------
http://www.fusionbot.com
Demo Search:
http://www.fusionbot.com/customers.asp
Used by 30,000 sites.
Extra Features:
Index PDF, Word, & Excel Documents
Follow Shockwave/Flash Links
Price:
500 pages - $20 per month (indexed weekly)
1,500 pages - $60 per month (indexed daily)
5,000 pages - $200 per month (indexed daily)
Be aware that most online reviews of FusionBot will be by folk
belonging to FusionBot's affiliate scheme.
MondoSearch
-----------
http://www.mondosoft.com/ms-features.asp
Search Demo:
http://search.mondosearch.com/cgi-bin/MsmFind.exe?RESMASK=MssRes.msk&CFGNAME=MssFind.cfg&SCOPE=Products&QUERY=features
Extra Features:
Indexes Flash, PDF & Microsoft Office files
PDF & Flash conversion to HTML
Use meta tags to create categories
Search words are highlighted on the matching page
Understands 37 languages
Automatic detection & deletion of duplicate results
Indexing of dynamic content simply
Frames support
http://www.mondosoft.com/ms-features.asp
Price:
"For the hosted solution, one to 1,000 pages is about $450 per month"
http://www.mondosoft.com/newsroom/pressclippings/2001/23-09-2001-01.asp
MondoSearch appears to be the most powerful of the remotely-hosted
solutions.
My Recommendation
-----------------
They are all very similar, and I found no negative comments about any
of them. Unless you need extra features, price and popularity point to
Atomz. If you have the time, sign up for the free version of several,
and test them for a week, before committing your dollars.
Search strategy: not much more than searching for the brand names.
Started at Google Directory:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Site_Management/Hosted_Search/?il=1
Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga |
