Fluid Dynamics Search Engine

Type of Program: Search Engine
Supported Platforms: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/XP
Company Name: XAV Software
Version: 2.0.0.0055
Price: $40

Download/Homepage

I spent many an hour trawling the net for a decent search engine for a links site I wanted to build and after many, many wasted downloads and trials I came across Fluid Dynamics Search Engine (FDSE). What a program!! Rich in features and highly configurable and customisable this is the webmasters answer to a prayer. It is basically a CGI script but don't let that deter you if your knowledge of CGI is nil, there is an auto-install option that will take care of the installation mechanics for you and the support and help files are unsurpassed.

The options are wide and varied but in essence it gives the user the opportunity to find files on your site or on a small cluster of sites. FDSE only searches the sites that you tell it to. It can handle about 10,000 documents in all, which is plenty for one site but much fewer than the total number of documents on the Internet. FDSE also runs entirely on your server, so visitors aren't redirected to a separate centralized server to get their results and FDSE is a flat search engine - it accepts keywords and shows a ranked list of search results. It does not organize pages into browsable categories and sub categories like Yahoo does. What it does do is allow you to arrange data into "Realms" which can then be incorporated into a drop down list in the search box. (See http://www.irishquest.co.uk/intro.htm as an example) which in effect gives you categories. There is a facility for users to add URLs which you can set for either straight addition or admin approved addition. An integrated advertising system is also included as is relevance ranking for search results.

A full list of the features and benefits can be found at http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/features.html
The Trial Shareware version has these limitations:
· It can only be used for a reasonable period of time while evaluating the product. After that, you are expected to choose either the Freeware or Registered Shareware versions
· The publicly-viewable copyright notice must be displayed
All in all it is absolutely incredible value for money at only $40 and is streets ahead of the competition.

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Reviewed by Simon Baillie

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