Choosing an open source search engine can be hard as they all look similar. Incremental index, stop words, fuzzy search, and ranking systems are important features to consider. An incremental index dynamically adds new lists, stop words narrow down results, fuzzy search finds similar results, and ranking systems determine relevance. The search engine should reflect the functioning of the site itself.
Choosing an open source search engine for a website can be difficult, in part because, on the outside, they all show relevant results based on a search term, so they all look similar. Having an incremental index, which can dynamically index new lists, prevents administrators from rebuilding the entire index. Stopwords, especially for large websites, are powerful tools for an open source search engine because they allow users to narrow down results. A fuzzy search function means that the search engine is able to find similar results based on the keyword, even if the results do not exactly match the keyword. Rating systems determine how each ad is displayed and should reflect how the main website works.
When an open source search engine is used, an index is loaded with all the different directories and websites that can be searched via the search engine. While this list is usually long, it typically gets longer as the website is used. When the index needs to grow, normally the administrator has to rebuild the entire index, as well as add all new websites and directories; this takes time and a lot of resources. With an incremental index, new lists are added dynamically and there’s no reason to rebuild the entire index; the admin just needs to add the new information.
If someone types a search term into the open source search engine, they usually get relevant results. This is not always the case and the results can have a bias towards irrelevant information. For example, if the user searches for pirates, he may only find websites about pirated movies and not historical information about pirates. A stop word allows the user to place a “-” sign before a word, which instructs the search engine to block results that include that keyword.
A fuzzy search function sounds bad, but it’s a useful tool used by many open source search engine programs. Without this, the search engine can only search for websites and listings that directly reflect the keyword. A fuzzy search shows results similar to the keyword, so the user gets broader results.
The open source search engine ranking system is how the search engine determines relevance. Some search engines base relevance on the number of times a keyword was used, when the listing or website was created, the number of links pointing to a website, or other arbitrary values. The administrator should choose a search engine that reflects the functioning of the site itself. For example, if the main website allows users to post ads, a date-based search engine usually works better.
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