If you enter a few words into Yahoo! or another Internet search engine, you get a good answer right away. So why can’t you get the same kind of answer with your Web site search engine? Unfortunately, it’s tougher than that.
People constantly ask me why they shouldn’t use Google for their Web site search. Others, who had already tried Google’s Search Appliance, asked, “Why doesn’t Google work on my Web site?” I get asked those questions a lot, so I finally wrote a newsletter answering them last year.
It’s not what people want to hear, but the problem of Web site search is far tougher than for Internet search, which is why there are so many different search engines out there. For most of them, you need to exhaustively evaluate them and then take a chance on buying them before you find out if it improves your situation. If you’d rather download a free search engine that you can try out easily before you buy, my company makes one of those.
Web site search technology is improving all the time and dropping in price, so if you’re disappointed it what you have, it might be time to try something new.
