As of January, 2012, this site is no longer being updated, due to work and health issues

Remote Site Search Services Reports

PicoSearch

PicoSearch will crawl your site and store your info in a remote database. When someone enters a query in the search form on your site, the PicoSearch server application receives the query, formats the results, and sends them back in an HTML form with links directly to the pages on your site.

Service Information

Platforms: all Internet-accessible web servers

Price: Free service for up to 1500 pages, 3 starting URLs, sponsored links (as of April, 2003)
Professional Plan 3,000 pages, unlimited URLs, file formats, templates for results pages, schedule updates: $249 per year.
Premium Plan 6,000 pages, $499 per year, all features

Special Features

• Indexes MP3 tags, Shockwave files, MIDI tags.
• Paid versions can read Word, Excel, RTF, PostScript and PDF, with nice little icons.
• Index log listing in browser in real time, or by email
• Indexes pages with CGI URLs (using question marks)
• Indexing pages protected by passwords
• Duplicate page detection
• Excellent index logging and nice list of pages indexed
• Indexes multiple sites (portal searching) and/or searches by zone.
• Multiple search forms and results in different languages
• Boolean search operators along with menu for any words, all words, exact phrase and +,-
• Stemming for plural and singular word matching in 14 languages.
• Relevance rank weight controls
• Flexible date and file size displays, with timezone calculations.
• Date sorting (pro and premium accounts)
• Search reports dynamically updated, easily printable.
• Admins can put recommendations for specific queries at top of search results
• Special link to picture in page will display picture in results
• Option to search within results
• Can set search zones in popup menu
• Options for "guest" sites and "mini portals"

Reviews and Articles

• PicoSearch offers inexpensive search engine SoftCart Merchants Network, Winter 2002
  Short but laudatory description of the PicoSearch service.
  
• PicoSearch, a free Web-based search engine May 20, 2001 by Philip Stripling
  Describes features of of the free PicoSearch service, concentrating on relevance ranking and results page layout. Problems with this version (not the paid version) reported include lack of automatic re-indexing, no directory or search exclusion, no search results page customization, and only the top twenty search requests reported.
  
• SearchTools Review of Remote Search Services September 27, 1999 (updated October 2, 2000) by Avi Rappoport
  Thorough discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using remote search services, how well their indexing robots handle standards and links, search and relevance ranking features, search features, results customization, maintenance and reporting.
  
• Search Me (More Stupid Web Tricks) CNET Builder.com, January 26, 1999 by Lauren Guzak and Patrick Joseph
  Three steps to adding PicoSearch to a web site.

Examples

• City College of New York
• IVAD and linked Sites - acupuncture, TCM, Herbal Medicine and Holistic Topics
• Nederlandse Bridge Bond - in Dutch, click on "zoeken".
• Oxford English Dictionary Corporate Information - not the dictionary contents
• Thomson Medical Economics - consulting and professional information

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