June 20, 2005
Hi- sorry to ask you to do my job for me but here goes: I am working on a redesign of an intranet site of about 500 pages. They arent happy with the current search, which basically just searches for text in the documents and returns "x% relevant" based on how much it finds. What I THINK (its all very vague) they want is something that searches based on the title or keywords they assign for a page. So, can I do this based on meta and/or title tags in HTML pages, or do I need to query a database with keywords for each page stored in it? So far I havent even seen the server at all, so I know very little about the backend. As far as I've been told they are just using CGI/Perl, although there seems to be some ASP at points. Anything I could use right out of the box without too much coding would make my life quite a bit easier... thanks!
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I need to build a spaceship.
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Addendum: I am basically a front end developer, although I know my way around Cold Fusion, ASP and those kind of things. I just started working here and I dont think anyone is going to help me on this- the project is all mine. I am, however, awesome at building spaceships.
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You can do anything with text that you can do with a database, it's just that the database is faster. If the information is stored in text files, and it's all there, you can do it with just the files. For speed, you can create an index, though that will add a layer of complexity. Or you could have Google do all the work for you. If it's a matter of convincing people, then find out when they need it, what exactly the need it to do, and how much they're willing to pay, as well as which two of the above are the most important to them, since you can only really pick two. Go from there. Other than that, the question is a little too vague to answer well.
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I found a product called Zoom search engine that costs $99 and might do what I want...
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I heartily second sandspider--your project will not succeed if you base it on what you think they want. Build a base of professionalism for you work that will serve you as "project management" skills in the future. ASK what they expect to accomplish, ASK how they will assess their satisfaction, and as important as those are--how much are they willing to spend. There are no wrong answers, btw. If they respond vaguely, or directly say that it is all up to you, then you know that, too. But never pass up the opportunity to ask the project's "owners" to set objectives. That way, you will have a better platform for your performance to be judged.