If your website has a lot of content, offering your users search functionality that makes it easier for them to find the content they're looking for is a usability must.
It can also enable you to track which content is most popular.
Here are 10 hosted site search tools that give you the ability to offer search functionality with no fuss and no muss.
Some offer advanced functionality such as tracking and analytics.
- Atomz (Free)
- Bravenet Site Search (Free)
- FreeFind (Free and Paid)
- FusionBot (Free and Paid)
- Google Custom Search Engine (Free)
- Google SiteSearch (Paid)
- JRank (Free)
- Live Search Box (Free)
- PicoSearch (Free and Paid)
-
siteLevel
(Free and Paid)
Most services listed above require little more than the addition of some HTML and/or JavaScript code to your website, making integration easy.
When choosing a service, keep the following in mind that most of the free services are ad-supported and have limits on the number of pages indexed and the frequency at which pages are re-indexed.
Depending on how large your website is, how frequently it is updated and how much customization you desire, a paid service may be necessary to offer an adequate experience.
In a future post, I'll look at a number of hosted site search tools.
Related articles:
Ten site search tips
Tips on site search box design
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9:16AM on 17th October 2008
Please also check Quintura Site Search via http://affiliates.quintura.com
It's a free, hosted visual-based site search & analytics for online content publishers.
12:52PM on 22nd October 2008
The thing with Google options is that the logo often makes people believe it's a full Google web search. If you're using the Google option I'd recommend hiding the logo until at least the results page.