Support

Current behavior:
There is no content search function for website pages or attachments

Desired behavior:
Search engine to search web pages, and ideally attachments as well.
ideally, search public and restricted content depending on current user access

Workaround:
Use Google search widget. This only works for publicly accessible content

Notes:
Biggest challenges:
1) implementing good search algorithms (most site searches are either too narrow or too broad)
2) indexing attachments of various types
3) Indexing restricted access content

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

Is it possible to integrate something like siteLevel (http://www.sitelevel.com) or FusionBot (http://www.fusionbot.comfaqs/faq36.asp) into WA sites?  These both claim to be able to index password protected areas via a "POST" method if given a username & password.

There are so many projects for WA!  While this one is nice, I can't vote for anything that can be done by existing 3rd party tools while there are so many WA projects that can not be done with existing 3rd party tools.  There are so many things WA can automate from the members database.

However, I can recommend a very powerful 3rd party tool that will not only allow you to set up a search for your WA website - but also, if you so choose, the websites of your members.  It can be "encased" in a page so that looks like part of your website.  We are using it for JewelryArtistDirect.com and I've been very impressed with it.  It is call FreeFind.com.

On the topic of 3rd party tools, our guild is also using WebSiteToolbox for our forum and they have a chat room that can be integrated with the forum if you need that . . . we have 5 years history on the forum, so I don't see us abandoning it.  I think they also have an auotmated links product, but I've never tried that.

Have you ever used freefind.com to search password-protected/members-only pages?  Their website says it can do that, but I wonder how it works with WA.

Feel free to test it but I do not think it would work :-(

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I understand the scepticism - we went through a lot of possible solutions before we found this one that actually works as a site search engine. 

The site we are using it on does not have any password protected areas, so I have not tried it.  We haven't felt a need to put it on the main site with the members only content so far.  I have been very impressed with free-find and do believe it will work "to index parts of your site which are protected using the HTTP basic authorization scheme".  Basically, it is able to index the password protected pages because you tell it the password info it needs to know to follow the links.

WHAT I DON'T KNOW is if WA uses HTTP Basic Authorization Scheme . . .

I have to say though, to get your money's worth with FreeFind, you really have to take the time to read their documentation and learn how to set up search parameters properly.  It really is a powerful system - but it only does what you tell it to do .  .  . like all computer stuff, garbage in, garbage out.  You have to understand what you want it to do and how to tell it to do it. 

For example, for indexing all of the member sites in JAD, I had to learn how to set the starting parameters and the exclude parameters.  The owners were very helpful in showing me the nuances I was missing at first - and that was all in the free trial. 

Here is the documentation about indexing password areas - which they only recommend doing for low-security pages - http://www.freefind.com/library/howto/passwords/

It's definitely worth the free trial to find out if it fixes your problems . . .

(As far as WA, I don't know if they are open to WA integrating their software into the product or not, but you could always ask as a means of saving development time.)

however . . . you might need friendly url's prior to being able to do this, since you have to give it the url's and the users/passwords . . .

Dmitry,

Implementing Search well is an amazingly complex task. Just look at the brainpower that Google hires to accomplish said task. To then take it to the next level and apply some sort of intelligence/context to it, it an almost impossible task. I don't see our members search the site in the way. So, I actually vote ZERO stars.

@gypse - we do NOT use HTTP Basic Authorization Scheme.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I have to respectfully disagree with sawyer0413.

sawyer0413:

Implementing Search well is an amazingly complex task.

From a web developers perspective it's really not complicated at all because we're only talking about a basic text search of your own site's web pages and possibly attached PDF/.DOC/etc. files, and there are lots and lots of 3rd party tools out there that already do this for most typical websites.  We're not talking about recreating Google within WA.

The complexity come in when you have a website that's part of a proprietary architecture such as WA and you're trying to integrate external tools into that architecture.  Searching the password-protected areas is another potential problem for external tools.

However, this task is more easily solved by WA developers since they obviously have access to the WA architecture and can figure out the best way to integrate a search tool into their product without having to reinvent the Site Search wheel.

sawyer0413:

I don't see our members search the site in the way. So, I actually vote ZERO stars.

When I go to a site that has more than a dozen pages of information, one of the first things I look for is the Search box.  It just saves time.

Hello Apricots,  I'm charging my members for access to technical content. They are not going to pay to hit it by accident. If we can't figure out searching in the blogs and forums section ASAP, then I'm afraid it's game over for Wild Apricot.

The irony is that this very blog is searchable. Does WA not use its own product?

Bradley


 

Bradley, sorry we do not have any built-in search functions currently.

We do not use our own product because our needs and resources are very different from the needs of our clients (e.g. we have quite a few techies to do customization and development - while most of our clients do not).

FYI - this software is called CommunityServer, take a look if it might be a better fit for you.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I had set up our site with a google custom text search, but now that we have set up a custom URL, it's broken.  I don't know if this will be fixed if we wait for google to index the new site...but, it would be good, if not to have a custom one, to at least have a well-written tip sheet about how to do this.

 http://www.womenplaywrights.org
 

Hello again, Apricots:

I'm just curious if this is still under consideration. The forums are really only good to me if they can be searched. (They are in a restricted section.)

Thanks! -Bradley

It is being considered - but there is no timeline yet as it looks like for many people a simple workaround would do - embed a Google Custom search (which searches only your site)

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

Apparently, only the Google Mini Appliance (http://www.google.com/enterprise/mini/features.html) can search protected areas.  This is their description:

"The Mini can crawl and serve search results for sites protected by HTTP Basic and NTLM v1 and v2 security and can integrate with your LDAP system. Both authentication and authorization occur at serve time, so individual users see only the results they have clearance to access."

Is that  us?

 

Sorry I did not realize you are talking about protected areas. Google search would not work in this case.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot