SEARCH ENGINES ­ COULD YOU USE ONE ?

As sites grow, it's surprising how quickly the information in them mounts up: information that is often difficult to track down - even if you were responsible for putting it there in the first place!

That's why Kupola Internet Design has developed a range of search engine software suitable for anything from relatively simple sites to large repositories of information.

As an example of the latter, try out the search machine for The Middle East Times.

Or try out our search machine and recommendation engine which we designed for an online supermarket.

When the Middle East Times site was smaller, we designed an engine which searched the whole site each time a query was made. This took some time, as the data grew to over 30 megabytes.

Clearly, a databased search engine, using an 'inverted index' was required. Unfortunately, the database generated by conventionally-designed software was too unwieldy, and results still took ten seconds or so to arrive.

So we designed a totally new tool, which creates a database index each week for every word in the new issue. The weekly databases are then searched by our query software which provides a rapid presentation of articles containing the required term.

The Middle East Times now stores over 70 megabytes of data on the server. Even so, the return of information starts about 0.7 seconds after the request arrives. Usually, the first data appears on your screen within four seconds of your making the query (depending on the traffic between here and Nevada, where the databank is stored).    Try it   HERE

Search Engines are, of course, just chunks of code. But they can be designed to mimic intelligent behaviour.

For our online supermarket, we have developed such a system. If a client enters 'Lindt', the machine returns a list of LindtTM products, which may be instantly ordered. If the customer really wanted coffee chocolates, and thought Lind produced them, but there are none in the shop, the search engine helpfully suggests shop departments in which similar products can be found. Try it and see... HERE

Novel and practical solutions for networked data retrieval are what you can expect from Kupola Internet Design. If you are interested in installing a search machine on your growing site, call Ian Portman on +49 711 429836 or fax +49 711 429836. Or drop us an e-note HERE.

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