When visitors arrive at your web site you want them to find
the information quickly otherwise they will lose patience
and move on. A great way achieve this is to add a search
engine or search box to your web site. Since most visitors
are already familiar with using search engines such as
Google, they can easily use the search feature on your site.

In this article I will discuss:

• The benefits of adding a search engine
• Types of search service providers
• Where to place a search box on your site
• How does the search engine work

1. Ecommerce sites
   Your ecommerce site usually has many different types
   of products so the navigation menu is not focused enough
   to rapidly find the specific product your visitor is
   looking for. Adding a search engine to your ecommerce
   site will help the visitor to easily and quickly zoom in
   on the product by entering their keyword in the search
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2. Dynamic sites search engines have difficulty spidering
   dynamically generated web pages. These are pages often
   generated from a database, so the information on your
   pages will not appear in the search engine's index.
   Add a search engine to each page of your site. If a
   visitor arrives on that page from one of the large
   search engines, they can then do a quick search from
   that page instead of searching elsewhere.
    
3. Small sites
   web sites that contain 5-10 pages don't need a search
   engine because visitors don't have to search through
   many pages to find the information. Instead, make sure
   you create a simple navigation menu at the top or side
   and bottom of your web pages.
   

1. Atomz (www.atomz.com)
   Atomz Express Search is a free service where you can
   integrate basic search capability on your personal
   web site or on one of your commercial sites. It can
   be used on sites with 750 total pages or less and
   allows customization of look and feel to match your
   site's design. Some third-party text ads are shown
   above and below the search results. You can use it
   for as long as you like for there is no trial period.
    
2. Freefind (www.freefind.com)
   Features include the ability to customize search and
   results pages. The free accounts are limited to 3,000
   pages or 32MB of storage. Site search is hosted on
   FreeFind's server. It generates a site map for you,
   tracks visitors searches and indexes password
   protected pages.
    
3. Google Free site search service
   (www.google.com/services/free.html)
   Searches only the specific domain(s) that you list
   when you create your search box. You can customize
   your results display to include background, text
   and link colors you select. The search box itself
   will reside on your web site. The search results
   page will be served by Google with the customized
   look and feel you specify. Google may serve ads
   on the results page. You can do an unlimited
   amount of searches. You must display the Google
   logo on the web pages that contain the search box.
   

1. Place the search box in a prominent location on
   your web page...preferably top center or top right.
2. Place the search box on all pages of your web site.
   Visitors may enter your site from any page.
3. Make the search box large enough to accommodate
   all search terms the visitor would use to find
   the information.
4. The search box should be a type-in box, not a link
   so visitors don't have to wait for another page
   to load.
5. Limit the search results to 50 per page. Visitors
   lose their patience if they have to scroll through
   long lists of results.

It works similar to the major search engines that search the
web, however instead of crawling the web they search engine
spider will search your site. The results of the crawl are
stored in a database that resides on the search company's
server.

The company provides the necessary code to add a simple form
to your web page. This usually consists of a search box for
inserting your keywords and a send button. When you click
the button it sends the query to the search company. They
process the query to create a search results page. This shows
those pages in your site that match the visitor's query.

The quality of the search results the search engine spider
collects depends on how much information is contained in your
site. Therefore take time to correctly optimize your site
i.e. provide lots of good content that includes your keywords.
Optimize your meta tags, images and create an accessible
navigation structure.

Optimizing your site will not only provide focused results
from your internal search engine but also boost your rankings
in the major search engines.

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