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I'm looking for a quality search function for a commercial website. What are the pros and cons of Zoom vs Atom and other search choices available? Thanks.
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I won't comment on the faults of the other products, but here are some things to check.
1) Is the product supported and are bugs being fixed. Many open source products haven't been updated in years. For Zoom see our release history.
2) Does the vendor give out their phone number for support? And do they speak English?
3) Do you pay a monthly fee forever or do you pay a one off fee, like for Zoom.
4) Is there a public form, like this one, where you can see real feedback from other users
5) Does the product support Windows7, Vista, Windows server 2008, etc..
6) Does the product support both Windows, Linux & BSD Unix servers?
7) Will it run on a intranet without access to the Internet. Zoom will.
Can you add a search function to a CD/DVD. Zoom can.
9) Do they have a bunch of happy users and example sites.
10) Do they publish performance benchmarks
11) Do the scripts have security problems. We closed our holes years ago, but several open source products still have XSS scripting issues as no one is maintaining them.
12) Does the product have a Users Guide?
13) Does the product support 1,000,000+ pages and publish benchmarks to prove it? (Some claim it but can't actually do it).
14) It is easy to install and configure, and do you have full control?
15) Are wildcards, exact phrase, stemming, negative words, image searching, Flash, multiple languages, etc.. supported?
16) Is incremental indexing supported?
17) Does it force your visitors off your site to do a search. Zoom is on your site, so visitors don't leave your site.
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Does the product display any advertising? Zoom doesn't. Do you really want adds from your competitors on your site?
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In my humble opinionOriginally posted by pab1953 View Post
the number 1 pro, pro, pro of this product is the company's responsiveness to its customers' questions and suggestions. This shows in the quality of the product, the documentation and on this site.
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The one-time fee for Zoom Search Engine, its ability to be customized in several server application environments, on-demand indexing, and immediate customer support are compelling reasons to invest in Zoom. I am very pleased.
I only use Atomz on one site -- my implementation is free but it has a limit on indexing (it used to be 1000 pages but I suspect something has changed). With many PDFs (church bulletins) in the archive, my indexing limit got used up a long time ago. It does offer on-demand indexing. The reports only go back as far as a preset report called "last month and this month." The results page takes you off the home site.
The home page of Atomz says FREE, but this is misleading. From http://www.atomz.com:
What's the catch?
There is none. Atomz really is free. We support ourselves through text-based advertisements.
Just some of the features that Atomz provides for free:
• Customizable Look and Feel
Use our best-practices search results template, modify it to match the look and feel of your web site, or design a custom template all your own with our easy-to-use template language.
• Powerful Indexing Options
Customize your site search index containing up to 10,000 web pages or .PDF documents in over 30 languages.
Ah, but upgrade options are disclosed once you set up an account and enter a URL. Premium levels are ad-free and keep visitors browsing within your site. Atomz "Premium Ad-Free Site Search" options are:
$80 per year to search up to 5,000 web pages
$150 per year to search up to 10,000 web pages
$250 per year to search up to 20,000 web pages
So, it would seem that the "up to 10,000 pages" feature of the "free" option, as given on the home page, is inconsistent with the premium fees.
By contrast, Wrensoft is right up front with its pricing options for Zoom Search.
One thing I do like about Atomz is the weekly reports that look like this:
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We are pleased to present this report about your Atomz Search account.
In this report:
-- Search statistics for St. Matthew's School
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YOUR SEARCH STATISTICS
Your Top Searches:
There were 4 searches for the week ending 03/14/09 for St. Matthew's School at http://www.st-matts.org.
Here are the top phrases searched:
- 2 for "fish fry"
- 1 for "first communion"
- 1 for "music"
The 4 total searches includes 0 searches from clicking links such as Next, Previous, Sort by Date, Sort by Score, Hide Summaries and Show Summaries.
To see all of the phrases and words entered by your visitors over day, week, and month periods visit:
http://center.atomz.com/center/search/reports/?sp-id=xxxxx
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Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.
Atomz Support Team
support@atomz.comComment
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You can generate statistics reports on the fly with Zoom. Either on your web site (using the report.php script) or from the Zoom indexer to produce stats reports like this. But you need to turn on logging first.Comment
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