I have recently surveyed search engines used on 160 UK University web sites. A report on the survey will be published in Ariadne
[1] in a few week's time (it will be announced on this list).
Of the 160 institutions, three used remote public services. Derby University [2] used AltaVista, while University College
Northampton [3] and St Mary's College [4] used Freefind. The other sites which provided a search facility used locally installed
software, such as ht://Dig, Excite, a Microsoft products, etc.
A useful source of information on search engines, including public ones, is provided by SearchEngine Watch [5].
Hope this is helpful.
Brian
References
1 Ariadne <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/>
2 Derby University Central Search <http://www.derby.ac.uk/homepage/search.html>
3 Web Site Search Engine, University College Northampton <http://www.nene.ac.uk/websearch/searchtest.html>
4 Search St Mary's College <http://www.smuc.ac.uk/search/>
5 Search Engine Software for your Web Site, SearchEngineWatch <http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/resources/software.html>
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Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, England, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Homepage: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly.html
Phone: 01225 323943 FAX: 01225 826838
----- Original Message -----
From: Sheila Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 10:02 AM
Subject: Remote host web search systems
> Do you have any experience with remotely hosted web search systems
> for an individual website you could share with me, please?
>
> The TWI website is hosted by Uunet. It is searchable with the Muscat
> search system, hosted by Muscat through Uunet. Uunet are dropping
> this service in a couple of weeks so we have to find an alternative
> fast.
>
> We could sign up with Muscat directly but that is very expensive. We
> could buy a search engine and pay Uunet to host it alongside our web
> pages but that too is very expensive.
>
> We don't feel it appropriate to use one of the free search
> services that display adverts on the search pages e.g. FreeFind. I'm
> looking, in particular, at Atomz and would be grateful for any
> reports on this and other such services that anyone has experience of
> to help us make our decision.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Sheila Thomas
> work: [log in to unmask] http://www.twi.co.uk
> play:[log in to unmask] http://www.granta.demon.co.uk
>
> Weldasearch, the Materials Joining Database from TWI -
> World Centre for Joining Technology
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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