From owner-freebsd-www  Tue Aug 19 08:11:11 1997
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-www>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA12054
          for www-outgoing; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:11:11 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA12048
          for <www@FreeBSD.ORG>; Tue, 19 Aug 1997 08:11:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost)
	by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA18186;
	Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:11:04 -0500 (EST)
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:11:04 -0500 (EST)
From: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>
To: Scott Armstrong <sarmstrong@wgate.com>
cc: www@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: FreeBSD and Apache search engine
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970819093127.006af898@popd.tvol.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970819100402.5102T-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-freebsd-www@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

On Tue, 19 Aug 1997, Scott Armstrong wrote:

> I was wondering if you could recommend a search engine that works well with
> FreeBSD and Apache. I'm looking to index multiple areas of a web site.
> What, if any, search engine is freebsd.org using?

We use freewais-sf.  Would I recommend it?  Not without
reservation. 

I have not seen any search engines that meet the three criteria
of (a) flexible, (b) easy to set up, customize and maintain, and
(c) use decent information retrieval algorithms.  My general
experience with existing free indexing software is that you can
get A and C, but not B, or you can get B but not A and C.

Then again, it has been 5 or 6 months since I last did an
informal survey of indexing software and things may have changed.

If you want a GOOD search interface, be prepared to spend time
writing CGI scripts.

-john