MadSci Network: Computer Science |
A web search engine works by creating an index of web pages, and then searching through its index to find the appropriate pages for a query. An index works similarly to the index in a book, it simply contains a list of all (important) words and the documents that they appear in.
To create a search engine for your server, you'll first have to set up an index, and a program for searching that index. There are many search systems and several megabytes of information available from SearchTools. Some of the systems are free, and some are not. SWISH is a free system that is fairly powerful.
If you're just looking for a quick, free, search system, ICE is a reasonable choice. It can be found here: http://www.objectweaver.de/ice
Note: Only the adminstrator of a web server can install search engines. If you're not the administrator of a server, you can set up your own (but make sure you have permission first). Apache is one of the most popular web servers, and Microsoft's Personal Web Server is a quick and easy server for people using Windows.
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Computer Science.