On Mon, 5 Feb 2001 10:25:58 +0000 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> ** Reply to note from Majella McCarron <[log in to unmask]> Mon, 5 Feb 2001 09:30:12 +0000
>
>
> > Here are three questions which I would ask when evaluating a search
> > engine:
> >
> > 1. Does it index multiple document types - not just txt and html but also
> > word,excel,pdf etc? I've had a bit of a read at the Google documentation but so
> > far I haven't been able to find any reference to this topic.
>
> If it has drivers to read them :-)
>
> I believe M$ own whatever is called has drivers.
> Verity (whoever owns it or whoever it owns now) used to have PDF drivers.
>
> I thought HT-Dig had drivers.
>
> >
> > 2 Does it generate query frequency ? Site maintainers want to get inside the
> > heads of their visitors to see what they're looking for from their sites. Good
> > for both planning content and determining the metainformation to be included in
> > pages.
>
> You could probably extract this from your ordinary logs if it does not have its
> own logging and from there on you do your analysis.
>
> In a non-statistical manner:
> - Most people search for people :-)
> - Then most people search for anything that comes to their head thinking a local
> engine indexes all the web.
> - Then the search for pages which no longer exist or have been moved (ie. from
> results of 404 errors).
>
> >
> > 3. How easy is it to set up restrained searches?
> >
> > There are more questions than these of course but for us at Queen's we would want a Yes
> > on all three for starters.
>
> As a general comment commercial engines may have drivers to read proprietary
> file formats, but for example with M$, making every newer version of
> its files backward incompatible those who write drivers would have a non-stop
> job. Thus you must expect to pay appropriately.
>
>
Yes - it's down to money and human resource. An off the shelf solution may seem
expensive at the time but should hopefully pay for itself in terms of freeing up staff
time. It depends what your priorities are.
Majella
----------------------
Majella McCarron
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