NYCPHP Meetup

[inforequest]

csnyder chsnyder-at-gmail.com |nyphp dev/internal group use| wrote:

>On Nov 21, 2007 6:43 AM, David Krings <ramons at gmx.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>You want to use something else and not make it from scratch (unless you
>>insist).
>>
>>    
>>
>
>If you _do_ insist, or you have some reason why third-party solutions
>won't work, the simplest search accepts a single term and looks it up
>using wildcards and the LIKE comparator:
>
>$safe_q = mysql_real_escape_string( $_GET['q'] );
>$query = "SELECT * FROM pages WHERE title LIKE '%{$safe_q}%' OR
>content LIKE '%{$safe_q}%' ";
>
>In many applications this pattern is sufficient for users to find what
>they need.
>
>It breaks down when searching hundreds of thousands of rows, or if you
>need boolean searches (search for foo or bar) or some other sort of
>advanced search functionality like stemming.
>
>  
>
and if this is for your own project where you care more about satisfying 
the user than meeting the specifications ;-)
run a commercial app like Atomz (very easy to set up) for a period of 
time to learn your customer search behavior.

Of course it depends on your site, but for many sites there is a core 
set of search terms that repeat over and over and over. Those represent 
a core search need, of course, but also opportunity -- people are 
looking for those things consistently. Use that information to improve 
the internal navigation of your site, as appropriate. Also create a set 
of core "info about this" pages for those terms, linked through from the 
sitemap or table of contents or help page, to guide those searchers 
exactly where you want them. Expose those "search term index" pages to 
search engines as well, because they will be highly relevant for their 
target terms and can bring you even more targeted visitors for those 
terms. Note that Google specifically excluses "search results pages" via 
their guidelines, but hand-crafted indexed pages as I describe are 
perfectly "legal".

I remind myself at this point that "guide them where you want them" is 
not always the same as "give them a direct path to where those words 
appear on the site". Search sends them where the words appear. I send 
them where the message of the web site is communicated most effectively 
to those users searching for those terms. Like a good search engine 
would ;-)

Atomz provides a customization feature that allows you to accomplish 
this goal within their system 9and so does Google's site search 
product). I have found the third-party dependence unnecessary for most 
projects. For forums and highly-dynamic sites that need to be searched, 
Atromz is great but gets pricey quickly as page views increase 
(everybody needs to make a living). I have used Atomz since they 
launched almost ten years ago... and I now know someone involved with 
the project. Always quality, but as I said it is a busienss and there is 
always a thrid-party dependency as businesses adapt to met their revenue 
needs.

Hope that helps .

-=john

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