Xtreeme Search Engine Studio 4.0 - User Guide and FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions - Xtreeme Search Engine Studio

1. I want to index a confidential website. Is the search engine data safe?
   Search engine generated by Search Engine Studio offers a great advantage over other available search solutions that index your website and keep the database on their server since both the script and data reside on your webserver. If you are indexing an intranet site, no data is sent to the outside world when creating the search database. The search script doesn't communicate with any external servers during execution. In other words, the search data is as safe as other data kept on the server. Only people with read access to your cgi-bin directory (or in case of the PHP script version, to the directory where the script and databases reside) will be able to read the data. However, you must keep in mind that this data is not encrypted. An additional advantage to storing your data locally is a great improvement in speed.
   
   
2. Can Search Engine Studio index data from the database on my server?
   The way the program works is it indexes documents (e.g. web pages, PDF or Microsoft Office documents) and not records from a database. However, most likely you have dynamic pages (created with e.g. PHP, ASP, or another server-side technology) which pull and present the data from the database (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL).
   
   Since the program contains a module which can crawl through a website and index such dynamically created documents (processed on the server-side), your database data will in this case be indexed.
   
   If you have no such pages, you can create a simple script page which will pull the required records / fields from the database and present them to the user. Then, you can have the program index these pages (you might also need an index page with links to all possible record presentations).
   
   
3. Whenever I try to run a search, a download window shows up asking if I want to download (open or save) sessearch.cgi. Why?
   This is caused by either an invalid CGI script or invalid interpretation of the script code. Please note that you can always create a PHP output which is compatible with virtually all account types offered by ISPs.
   
   Here are possible reasons for this error
   1. If you manually upload sessearch.cgi (to an FTP server) and you don't use Search Engine Studio's built-in upload option, you must use the binary transfer mode. Text transfer mode would corrupt the file.
   2. Please verify that you select proper operating system in options/search engine. You need to select a different OS for Unix-based servers.
   3. It's possible that your ISP did not give you permission to run CGI scripts. Your web server may be also configured not to run executable (binary) CGI scripts but only text scripts (such as Perl). Please contact your ISP and ask them if you're allowed to run binary (compiled) CGI scripts.
   4. You can usually run CGI scripts only in the directory specifically designated for this purpose (usually /cgi-bin). Again, please contact your ISP to find out in which directory you can save CGI scripts.
   5. It's possible that your server is configured to interpret scripts with the .cgi extension as e.g. Perl scripts. In such case, you should change the name of the script file to sessearch.exe (options / search engine / filename of the CGI script).
   6. Make sure the CGI script (sessearch.cgi) has the execute permission set for all users. You can check/modify this in your FTP program.
   
   
   
4. I get the "Page cannot be found" (404 Error) instead of search results. Why?
   This means that you have not correctly set up the directories in options / output or that you have not uploaded the output files to the web server (the problem is that your web server expects the search script to be located at the URL visible in the address bar of your browser).
   
   To make sure you have correctly set up the directories, check the setting for 'CGI/search script directory -- HTTP path'. This directory should correspond to the output directory set in option 'output directory for cgi/search scripts' and usually should be set to '/cgi-bin' for CGI scripts. Please note that the search box uses this directory to reference the search script (sessearch.cgi, sessearch.php or sessearch.htm).
   
   
5. How can I display my company logo, navigation bar etc. on the results pages?
   First you'll need to create a template file. A template file is a simple HTML page created with any web editor. This page should contain all the elements which you want to be displayed in the results page, (except for the search-specific code).
   
   Then, go to the Template window (Window menu / Template), change 'item being set' to 'result list insertion point', then click the 'Import result list template' button (this is the button in the middle of the window, not the one on top saying 'Import general template file'), and open your template HTML page you just created.
   
   All that's left to do now is determining where on the template page the search code will be inserted. You do this by clicking within the code of the template page (this appears in the window). Once the marker shows the correct insertion point, you're all set. The program will now merge your template file with the search-specific code.