Dynamic Search

[tysel]

Just bought the software and it works as advertised, kinda

Have few questions about the software:

1./ I'm using SearchFeed on my site. Whenever a search is made, besides results getting from the database, I also get results from SearchFeed. For instance, when searching for the term RECIPES, my search engine will draw links from Yahoo and Google's databases, and along with links from these 2 search engines, the search pages also display few links from SearchFeed about the subject RECIPES. This can only be done on pages with PHP extension.

I'd like to extend this feature to ZoomEngine. The seach page currently ends with the HTML extension, which renders PHP snippets non-includable. Is there somewhere in the SEARCH.PHP file that I could go in and change the search page to end with PHP ?

I believe I'm not the only one with this static (HTML) vs. dynamic (PHP) dilemma

2./ How to include subdomains without errors ?

I inserted few subdomains in the ADDITIONAL SPIDER URL box in the attempt to get the software to spider my entire site, i.e.

http://www.my-site.com/;http://news.my-site.com/;http://sports.my-site.com/

. I got the error "Check the URL exists and satisfies the settings in the configuration window" everytime.

Does anybody know how to get the software to spider the main URL and its sub-domains ?

3./ The correct query syntax

I'd like to embed the keyword into the search pages, i.e. "You can also find [keyword] @ Yahoo - Google - MSN" with the keyword embedded into those 3 search engines links.

How do I find out the correct keyword to insert it into my search pages ? Should it be {keyword}, (term), or <query> , etc ?

[David]

1) If you want to add additional scripting of your own around our search.php script see this FAQ question. It gets around the problem of the template being plain HTML.

2) You should only enter 1 URL per start point as the spider URL. (Not 3 URLs on 1 line). You need to click on the add button 3 times.

3) See here for a description of the query syntax for Zoom but I don't think this is what you are asking? If you want to search Yahoo and Google, then you will need to write your own code.

[tysel]

Thanks for answering my questions.

Regarding question #3, I found something interesting when going through the SEARCH.PHP, and incorporated the keyword $query_out into one of the PHP statements. It worked, and displayed search results pulled from Google and Yahoo on the same page of ZoomEngine's.

This solves half the question. When I input the keyword $query_out into the news searchbox, the keyword didn't get changed from $query_out to whatever the keyword I had entered in the ZoomEngine searchbox.

Do you call this "parameter passing process" or something to that effect ? I need to pass the keyword to the news searchbox after pressing the submit button.

[David]

I am not exactly sure what your news searchbox is nor fully understand the problem. But it seems you are wanting a custom work done to feed form inputs into various 3rd party scripts on your site. Our free support doesn't extend to the customisation of your PHP source code (especially we we don't have a copy of your source code).

[tysel]

You're correct in assuming I'm using a 3rd-party search script. Mine is a meta news search script where it pulls and tallies news from various news sources.

I'd need to know the correct parameter or keyword from ZoomEngine to pass to (fill in) the search value of the news script. All the searchers/users need to do is to press the Submit button, and instant news search results will appear.

[AG!]

Are you looking for the PHP command $_GET['zoom_query'] ?

Use this to pass to the other scripts

[tysel]

I tried the value that you suggested but it didn't work either.

Below is the sample of the search form whose value I temporarily input as $query_out, which also doesn't work (the search term doesn't get passed on(.

<form action="http://www.my-site.com/news/search.php" method="get">
<input type="text" name="query_string" size="30" value="[B]$query_out[/B]">
<input ...>
<input type="submit" value="Search"></input>
</form>

Would it just simple be $query_string ? LOL

[Ray]

There is no variable named $query_string in our search.php script.

As previously mentioned, modifying the script requires good scripting knowledge and also a fair amount of time to debug and analyse the code. We do not provide free support for customizing the script. In addition, I should warn that you will have to be prepared to make your changes again when the script changes in future versions.

[AG!]

I tried the value that you suggested but it didn't work either.

Below is the sample of the search form whose value I temporarily input as $query_out, which also doesn't work (the search term doesn't get passed on(.

<form action="http://www.my-site.com/news/search.php" method="get">
<input type="text" name="query_string" size="30" value="[B]$query_out[/B]">
<input ...>
<input type="submit" value="Search"></input>
</form>

Would it just simple be $query_string ? LOL

Hello,

If you have added the following yourself,
<input type="text" name="query_string" size="30" value="$query_out">

then to access the value $query_out, you must use the variable $_GET['query_string']

[tysel]

May I ask you where exactly in the form statement that I'd enter the GET command ?