All,

 

I am working on creating a PHP & MySQL based search engine. But I have one question in which I am not understanding. If I have created a plain html site, will my search engine work? Or, will the content on those pages have to be in a MySQL database in order for the search to work?

 

This is something I am reading about this topic.

 

Please help in this matter. Also, I have been researching this topic and this is something I am trying to get a better grasp on.

 

Thanks in advance in this matter.

 

 

-John

Look on Google for SPHIDER, its a free PHP app!, learn from that :>

Look on Google for SPHIDER, its a free PHP app!, learn from that :>

 

 

Thanks a lot, this looks like something I can learn from!

 

 

-John

That was a pretty neat article you found. I really don't know much about search engines but I'm interested in the topic also...and so far see 2 approaches to this.

 

1. external - make a search that scans through html pages...the output/visual side

2. internal - make a search that scans through your database for information

 

Either approach delivers search results, but both have their own limitations. By searching through the html output, and then deciding what to index...you have limitless options, but also a lot of work to do with creating a superior algorithm. If searching your own database with ready made keywords that were inputted by someone before, you have less algorithm to create but are limited to your own website's structure.

1. external - make a search that scans through html pages...the output/visual side

2. internal - make a search that scans through your database for information

 

Now that I think about it, this is actually using both options you mentioned. A search engine first crawls the site and finds the information in which it begins to index the information with a keyword, title and description. Then when one wants to search for a certain thing the search actually searches the database and outputs the information that was recently index from the search engine crawler.

 

So the information that posted previously about SPHIDER, sounds like a really nice php app to use on a small time site; which might include a site that has noting but static html pages.

 

This is rather an interesting topic.

 

-John

I'm trying to setup Google Custom Search with one of my sites that I'm on right now. I haven't fully made it work, but I put the search box in place, and excited with how easy it has been so far. Can't test it yet though cause it's all localhost at the moment.