FM SiteSearch Pro - A Superior, Inexpensive Website Indexer and Search Engine Script
by Rich Deem

Introduction

Several companies offer free offsite search for your website. The best of these and the one I used for a couple years was Atomz (www.atomz.com). The disadvantage of using one of these services is that they add either advertisements or links off your site. Most do not offer custom templates so that your search results page does not match your site navigation (with Atomz being the exception). Atomz has the disadvantage of only offering its free services to sites with fewer than 500 pages. When this site went over 500 pages, I began to search for a search script that didn't require ads. After testing many different website search engines, I have determined that FM SiteSearch Pro is the best and also easiest to install and use. From my testing, it gives highly relevant search results with superior speed. The cost is quite reasonable at ~$50. However, you can download the program and test it for free (a link appears on each search results page until it is registered).

Installation

This is a simplified, "quick and dirty" instruction set to get the program up and running.

  1. Download the program at focalmedia.net.
  2. Extract the downloaded program using Win Zip or other zip extraction program.
  3. Create a "data" directory in your root folder (preferably outside your HTML folders).
  4. Upload the files in the "data" folder into your newly-created "data" folder. Change all permissions to 777.
  5. Upload the files in the cgi folder into your cgi-bin folder (usually in a folder called "fmsearch"). Change all permissions to 755, except "config.cfg" which should be set to 777.
  6. Upload files in the "images" directory into a directory with read access to the world (e.g., /images/fmsearch/).
  7. Run "setup.cgi" in your fmsearch cgi folder from your browser (e.g., http://www.yourdomain.com/ cgi-bin/fmsearch/setup.cgi). Follow the setup directions and delete the "setup.cgi" file after setup is complete.
  8. Login to the control panel and setup the directories and templates.

Templates

Templates are not necessary, but provide a way to match the look and navigation of your site. Create templates using your favorite HTML editor or use one that you have already created. Default templates can be found in your "data" folder. You can edit these files or paste your own template html code into the control panel.

Conclusion Top of page

There are many more options and much more documentation on the FM SiteSearch Pro website. You can test the search engine to the left or do an Advanced Search.

FM SiteSearch Pro

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http://www.godandscience.org/general/fmsearch.html
Last Modified April 2, 2006

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