An updated survey of search engine software on UK HE Web sites is now
available at:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/surveys/uk-he-search-engines/survey-jan2001
.html#survey
As can be seen from the summary
(http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/surveys/uk-he-search-engines/survey-jan200
1.html#summary) ht://Dig is by far the most popular search engine. A
Microsoft solution (several are available) has grown in popularity by a
small amount. Interestingly 3 organisations have found the funding to
purchase the licensed product Ultraseek. Is this an indication of increased
budgets for Web teams? Of course, if Ultraseek - which recently changed
ownership - was owned by Microsoft, there would be an outcry in some
quarters over using a (expensive?) licensed product when open source
solutions, such as ht://Dig are available.
The growth in ht://Dig, Microsoft and Ultraseek has been at the expense of
eXcite, Harvest and some esoteric products. In addition some institutions
which did not have a search facility now have one.
A brief summary is given below.
Software Jan 2001 Jan 2000
ht://Dig 42 31
Microsoft 18 15
Ultraseek 11 8
eXcite 9 16
...
Harvest 3 7
..
None 43 50
Comments welcome.
Note that at the Institutional Web Management workshop there was some
discussion about running a day's event for administrators of search engines.
I guess the products to focus on would be ht://Dig, Microsoft and Ultraseek.
How much interest would there be in an event of this type?
Thanks
Brian
PS As always, please let me know of any errors in the survey, changes, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: (+44) 1225 323943
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