I'm researching different alternatives for implementing search in my site. For a while I have been thinking of implementing it using Zend_Search_Lucene. But one interesting alternative seems to be Google Site Search ( http://www.google.com/sitesearch ). It would cost $100 annually (for < 5k pages) and is a bit customizable. Time is a bit of an issue for me, so $100 is preferable to implementing search at this point, I would definitely spend more time on it at some point in the future though.<p>Has anyone tried it out or has anything to say about it? What do you use for search on your site?
I looked at it a few years ago and ultimately just wrote my own. Back then I had more time than money also...<p>I've been to sites that use Google Site Search and it's just fine for what I've wanted. I don't think less of the company or anything - I know Google, I trust that their search results are good. I'd say it's probably a good idea.
Use a JavaScript mashup to do a Google site search by emulating a Google search of the form<p>findthis site:mysite.com<p>So the user enters "findthis" in a form field. On submit your JavaScript performs an XmlHttpRequest for URL:
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=findthis+site%3Amysite.com&btnG=Google+Search" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=findthis+site%3Amys...</a><p>and returns the result to the user.<p>Downside: User's browser must have JavaScript enabled.