As of January, 2012, this site is no longer being updated, due to work and health issues

Search Tools Product Report

Livelink Federated Query Server

(was QueryServer MetaSearch Engine)

Product Description

Price: Contact company.
Platform: Windows NT 4.0 Server (SP3, 5, or 6a), Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Solaris 2.5, RedHat Linux 6.0.

(Originally developed by Dataware, now from OpenText, which also produces OpenText LiveLink Discovery Search Engine)

Features

• Routes queries simultaneously to multiple HTTP-compatible search services.
  
• Allows addition of new search engines, and modification of interface to existing ones.
  
• Automatically translates the user's query into the appropriate syntax for each search service.
  
• Supports password protected search services, including access to HTTPS search services.
  
• Duplicate results from different search services can be merged to eliminate repeat listings
• Customizable ranking algorithms can be applied to sort and cluster results.
  
• Calculates or estimates result relevance scores.
  
• Can generate a table of contents for results page.
  
• Customizable user interface. End user can select query and display options from the search form.
  
• Formats search results from multiple sources to conform to a single standard specified by the administrator.
  
• Includes a Windows configuration tool with wizards to perform most administration tasks.

Articles & Reviews

• Metacrawlers and Metasearch Engines Search Engine Watch: March 23, 2005 by Chris Sherman
  
  Briefly noted, and ranked as a top choice metasearch engine.


• The Meta Search Engines: A Web Searcher's Best Friends Web Design in New York: September 9, 2002 by Daniel Bazac
  
  Roundup of several meta search engines, including Query Server.

Examples

• News Search - Queries 10 news sites, TV and newspapers.
• Health Search - Queries 12 health and medical sites.
• Government Search - Queries twelve US federal government sites.