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kklunkkklunk 

Site Search within a Site.com site?

Has anyone implemented a site search, like Google Site Search, in a Site.com site?

dhardingdharding

I have, but I'm using an external software package to do it, not something within Salesforce.

 

The package I use indexes remotely via http crawler and I host the database on an external server. I have the searchbox on the pages within site.com set to post the query to the external domain, which returns the results page on the external domain, but the links in the search results all point back to the site.com pages.

 

So basically I'm round-tripping the user, but unless they're examining URLs in the address bar, it appears seamless.

 

The reason I use this approach rather than Google's Site Search et al., is that we want to control WHEN the site gets spidered for internal searches. In other words, if we add or remove pages, or make major modifications, we want the internal search changed NOW, not at the whim of some third party's spidering schedule that may take days or weeks to update.

 

It also gives us much more customizability with regards to the formatting of the search results page.

 

It's all about how much control you need.
kklunkkklunk

Thanks for the info! Still determining what the best solution will be for our customer experience. You make great points on updating the search results on your own timeframe and the styling of the results. That is something that concerns me. I appreciate your help!
AdminBoosterAdminBooster

To have a full cloud solution without requiring a dedicated database, you can leverage services such as sitelevel.com. They provide a custom look and feel to display search results, and can crawl your site when you decide it