Site Search Scripts

Posted by Pixelhead

A client asked me about putting a search engine on his site so that visitors could find selected products. Having a search engine on an ecommerce site makes it easier for return visitors to find pages that they visited previously. Having a search function on a site is a usability issue that could result in lower sales if it is not present.

Below are some search engine scripts that I found while doing research, but I have not evaluated them in anyway, but did note when I found a user rating.

Premium Site Search Scripts

For a professional ecommerce site, I would recommend using a premium search script rather than a free search script.

http://www.site-search-pro.com/ $39 (high user rating)

http://www.freefind.com/plans.html paid ($19-$79)and free options

http://risearch.org/eng/risearch_php/index.html $10

http://www.aleadsoft.com/ $59 for standard or $99 for pro and has a free trial version.

Free Site Search Scripts

Free is a nice thing, but often times it does come with a price. The price for using a free site search script is often that in addition to searching your site, adds for other sites will appear in the search results. If potentially sending visitors away from your site does not bother you, then I would suggest signing up for a Google Adsense account and using the Google site search tool bar. In addition to the Google site search, I have also included several other free site search script options here as well.
http://www.jrank.org/

http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/google_site_search.shtml

http://www.perlfect.com/freescripts/search/

http://www.google.com/coop/cse/

http://www.freefind.com/

Got any other site search engine scripts that could be added to the list?

Written by Pixelhead on January 16th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Stock Trading Software
#1. January 17th, 2008, at 1:37 PM.

Which of the free ones have a wordpress plugin? Sure I could find out but just wondering if you know off the top of your head?

Pixelhead
#2. January 17th, 2008, at 2:41 PM.

STS, wordpress comes with a search bar installed, you just have to go into your theme and enable it. Here is more info on enabling the WordPress Search bar. Thanks for asking, because I actually have at least one other WordPress blog that does not have it enabled. It would be sweet if ecommerce owners could use the WordPress Search bar to search their sites because I think it does a marvelous job of searching the Pixelheadonline blog.

Stock Trading Software
#3. January 17th, 2008, at 5:38 PM.

BTW I just wanted to introduce myself… you would know me better as “DeMerchant” from stumbleupon… or maybe more accurately as “that guy who always sends me sites I don’t care about, but he at least stumbles me back”

Pixelhead
#4. January 17th, 2008, at 6:39 PM.

Thanks for the intro Demerchant. Keep on sending those Stumbles, anything to do with finances is always welcomed. I ought to get you to do a weekly financial post here on Pixelheadonline.

Stock Trading Software
#5. January 17th, 2008, at 6:56 PM.

It’s not as much my thing as a guy I work with named Josh “MauiTrader” Hayes. I run his site for him http://www.bigwavetrading.com. He does a weekly free post which I’d be more than happy to publish here if you ever wanted.

Steven Snell
#6. January 18th, 2008, at 12:33 AM.

I like the simplicity of Google’s custom search. It’s not the best option for an e-commerce site, but for many sites it’s a quick and effective option.

Forrest
#7. January 18th, 2008, at 6:07 AM.

I guess with WordPress, it’s easy to get used to automatically having a search. And with everything coming out of a database to begin with, it’s probably much easier.

I might have to look into one of these for my static html site, though … it’s such a nice feature. I’m not sure if it’s necessary on a site like mine, but I use search forms so often on other sites that it seems wrong not to make one available.

Pixelhead
#8. January 18th, 2008, at 1:57 PM.

Dermerchant, that would be groovy.

Steven, Lizzie has the Google Search bar on Fatladysingz, her weight loss blog, which gets minimal traffic, and has been the dominant Google earner on that site, and has accounted for nearly 20% of our total Google revenue this quarter alone(pitiful as it is). But as you send, I am not sure I would want to use it on an ecommerce site and potentially drive customers away.

I know I have actually left sites if there was not a search bar present, and I don’t believe I am alone in that behavior.

Forrest, with your site though, visitors will just keep discovering more and more awesome pictures with every click, so it may not be a factor…but then again you never know.

Vancouver Press
#9. January 19th, 2008, at 11:40 PM.

I like the standard search bar that comes with wordpress

George Lindemann Jr
#10. March 25th, 2008, at 4:50 AM.

I think google site search http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ is the easiest and one of the best site search available.

Sim Only Contract Deals
#11. December 25th, 2008, at 6:46 PM.

Wouldn’t it be better to install Google search on your site? You can set it to search the entire web or only pages from your site. I think that’s better.

website design tampa
#12. September 3rd, 2009, at 7:34 PM.

I think Google Search Engine Script is very good, it uses the Google API search interface to display google search results on your site. This script displays search results 10 per page, supports google’s suggested spellings and is 100% template based.

swasa
#13. January 13th, 2010, at 10:20 AM.

You can prefer the google custom search engine.Thanks for providing the search scripts.

Blog link building
#14. May 13th, 2010, at 4:52 PM.

you can try Sphider search engine . is quite nice .

William
#15. July 22nd, 2010, at 7:56 PM.

Drives me crazy when ecommerce sites don’t have a search box; if I can’t find one immediately, that’s usually enough for me to write off that site right then and there and move on.

It’s unfortunate that the standard WordPress search doesn’t play nicely with the WP-ecommerce plugin.

Pixelhead
#16. July 23rd, 2010, at 2:15 PM.

Yes, I love the WordPress search box, I really wish it could be tweaked to be used on non-Wordpress sites…sounds like a project for a young programer..know any industrious young programers William?

Jack
#17. July 28th, 2010, at 11:04 AM.

I preffer Google custom search script, it handles much better than anything else. Yeah it is pricey, but if you have more than 10,000 articles it becomes very useful tool.