Hi Mike
The last survey was actually carried out in June 2004 - see
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/surveys/uk-he-search-engines/2003-06/
Back then the view seemed to be:
o ht://Dig was the safe choice.
o ht://Dig was used as it was free as in beer - there seemed to be
little interest in modifying the source code within the community, and
there seemed to be a lack of momentum more widely in developing the
software.
o Google (externally hosted) was growing in popularity.
o Sites were starting to provide two search engines - typically
ht://Dig and Google.
o Sites had similar concerns about Google to those you mentioned.
o A small number of sites were using (and seemed happy with)
commercial tools such as Ultraseek/Inktomi.
There appears to be litttle indication of takeup of solutions such as
Knowledgement Management Systems; integration with other services
(e.g. library catalogues; etc.) I'd be interested to seem if I'm wrong
about this.
Brian
Mike McConnell wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> What search engines are people currently using in HEIs? I've seen
> little on
> this since Brian's last survey back in 2002
> (http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue30/web-watch/intro.html)
>
> At Aberdeen we were running both htDig and Google's University Search,
> but
> ending up withdrawing htDig as it couldn't cope with the size of our site
> and was producing mainly irrelevant results, to the point where it was
> worse than useless. At the minute we've solely got Google.
>
> Whilst this free facility generally produces extremely relevant results
> with typical Google accuracy, it has several significant limitations,
> viz:
>
> - its index is not comprehensive as htDig's
> - it cannot be configured to search non-abdn.ac.uk domains
> - the index is updated on average only every 4 weeks; thus recently
> amended or new content does not immediately appear in results
> - we have no control over when the site is reindexed
> - we are subject to Google's algorithims and thus cannot affect the
> order
> in which results are displayed
>
> I've seen Sebastian's useful evaluation of the Google appliance
> (http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/google.xml), but would be interested to
> hear others' experiences of alternatives (particularly open source ones,
> needless to say).
>
> We're running Apache/UNIX/PHP 4.3.7, if that has any relevance.
>
> If folk want to reply to me, I'll summarise to the list.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike
>
> ------------
> Mike McConnell
> Web Team Manager
> University of Aberdeen
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.abdn.ac.uk/web/
>
> Directorate of Information Systems and Services
> Edward Wright Building
> Dunbar Street
> Aberdeen
> AB24 3UF
> Tel: +44 (0)1224 27 2602
> Fax: +44 (0)1224 27 3372
--
--------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus, UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone +44 1225 383943
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