A Waterford Search Engine?

jmcc · 14-10-2010 9:51am #1

I was thinking of building a search engine for Waterford websites over the weekend. Is there any need for such a thing or is Google the default for everyone?

Regards...jmcc

old gregg · 14-10-2010 10:02am

I thought you'd built one of those years ago?
If not, then maybe you should have when there was just you, me and the rest of the iol ug folks who had web sites

jmcc · 14-10-2010 10:36am

old gregg wrote: »

I thought you'd built one of those years ago?
If not, then maybe you should have when there was just you, me and the rest of the iol ug folks who had web sites

I did. But I never really developed it as it only had about ten websites and apart from the Munster Express, we owned most of them.

Regards...jmcc

ziedth · 14-10-2010 11:48am

Not my area by any stretch but would it be possible to search for things related to Waterford but not Waterford Sites? I find if I'm looking for something specific sometimes on Google it can take a bit of leg work to find it. Bus times to cork for example.

jmcc · 14-10-2010 12:09pm

ziedth wrote: »

Not my area by any stretch but would it be possible to search for things related to Waterford but not Waterford Sites? I find if I'm looking for something specific sometimes on Google it can take a bit of leg work to find it. Bus times to cork for example.

It might be best to start with Waterford sites and then add the related stuff. The working list is approximately 1K websites. That will probably reduce to about 800 or so. But it would be possible to subdivide the sites into services and other categories.

Regards...jmcc

baronflyguy · 14-10-2010 12:49pm

Good idea, there isnt any Waterford specific portal page with search capability for Waterford websites. Since I live in Waterford it would be the first page I would like to use if I wanted to look up something Waterford related. I find google adwords and other intrinsic SEO tricks, that people/companies/web designers dont know about or dont understand how to use, ends up hiding a lot of worthwhile websites from googles search engine. Not many people go beyond page 1 and 2 after a google search.

eimearos · 14-10-2010 3:10pm

Hi jmcc, i think it would a great idea and would definately work. i agree with baronflyguy on his comment above. Best of luck with it, maybe when my business website is up and running you might consider putting it on your search engine.

AdMMM · 14-10-2010 3:13pm

You wouldn't be able to retire on it, but it should be cost-neutral at the very least.

jmcc · 14-10-2010 3:40pm

@baronflyguy The Google instant thing is making that worse in that it starts sorting the results before they are even typed. The problem I've seen with some Irish websites is that they are not linked to others. This means that if they are not in a directory or otherwise detected, then the search engines will miss them.

@eimearos All Waterford related sites will be included. (At least that's the aim.

)

@AdMMM Well it won't be Google but it will have a built-in filtering mechanism to limit the sites to ones of Waterford interest. Much of the hard work, (detecting the websites) is already done so it will be a case of kickstarting the search engine with this initial set of sites and then adding more as it grows.

Regards...jmcc

ikeano29 · 14-10-2010 3:41pm

Great idea. i would definetly be interested in using it and trying it out.

looksee · 14-10-2010 3:45pm

Provided you get Waterford Ireland and not Waterford - various places in the US - sounds like a good idea.

jmcc · 14-10-2010 3:55pm

looksee wrote: »

Provided you get Waterford Ireland and not Waterford - various places in the US - sounds like a good idea.

That was one of the biggest problems in building an Irish (or a UK) search engine about ten years ago. Many US cities and towns have equivalent Irish/UK cities and town names. The good thing is that the Irish web has grown and there are many more Irish websites than there were then. Some are easy to find but others are a bit more difficult. But the operating principle will be Waterford Ireland websites.

Regards...jmcc

wellbutty · 14-10-2010 4:03pm

Great idea...would it based on page ranking (using Google) or would it be a straight parameter-based search over a database of websites (= or LIKE etc)?

jmcc · 14-10-2010 4:12pm

wellbutty wrote: »

Great idea...would it based on page ranking (using Google) or would it be a straight parameter-based search over a database of websites (= or LIKE etc)?

Simple at first. Then even simpler. Probably just a keyword based search over a database of websites. It will be a real search engine but on a small scale. The social networking side of things (as in n users like this site) may never happen as it is too prone to gaming.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc · 15-10-2010 1:06pm

Currently at 1362 Waterford related websites. The final initial set of sites might be lower but it is surprising how many Waterford sites there are. I wonder should I include sites from Kilkenny?

Regards...jmcc

old gregg · 15-10-2010 2:53pm

only go as far as Ballyhale in Northern Waterford

jmcc · 15-10-2010 5:44pm

old gregg wrote: »

only go as far as Ballyhale in Northern Waterford

Wasn't some KK pol accusing Waterford of "liebensraumt" a while back?

I'll just add a North Waterford/South Kilkenny category then.

Regards...jmcc

Bog · 15-10-2010 9:26pm

jmcc wrote: »

Wasn't some KK pol accusing Waterford of "liebensraumt" a while back?

I think we all need some room for a little lovin'..

Godsentme · 17-10-2010 8:11am

looksee wrote: »

Provided you get Waterford Ireland and not Waterford - various places in the US - sounds like a good idea.

Or worse still - Waterford, Co Kilkenny. :eek:or Waterford , near Kilkenny. :eek::eek:I often get this on Goooogle.:mad:

jmcc · 17-10-2010 10:55pm

Godsentme wrote: »

Or worse still - Waterford, Co Kilkenny. :eek:or Waterford , near Kilkenny. :eek::eek:I often get this on Goooogle.:mad:

There's even a Waterford Road in Kilkenny.

I've the initial version of the search engine working and have to do some HTML/css work but it should go active in the next few days.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc · 12-04-2012 8:33pm

Seems like a blast from the past but I finally got some time to finish the development work on this. At the moment, 1802 Waterford websites (some are in North Waterford as their primary market is Waterford) are included in the index and the index has 68556 pages so far.

At the moment, I'm not sure whether to widen the range to include all other county sites that are selling into Waterford. There are some tweaks necessary but it should go live as soon as the HTML stops reducing web developers to tears.

Regards...jmcc

old gregg · 12-04-2012 9:42pm

good stuff John

watermark · 13-04-2012 11:42am

search: well boy

about 1,232,453 results

jmcc · 13-04-2012 11:50am

watermark wrote: »

search: well boy

about 1,232,453 results

Must be the Google results for Waterford, Michigan.

Here's the Waterford result:
Search for well boy. Search results: well : 2593, boy : 608.

155 for Blaa.
Now I am hungry.

Regards...jmcc

andrewf10 · 13-04-2012 5:13pm

This is brilliant news, if you need an extra pair of coding hands just let me know! (if it's PHP)

jmcc · 24-09-2012 8:13pm

It might be working now. I've just switched the DNS so things might be a bit iffy for a while but the 100K index is now live.

http://waterfordireland.com

Regards...jmcc

old gregg · 24-09-2012 10:30pm

works like a dream

jmcc · 24-09-2012 10:40pm

old gregg wrote: »

works like a dream

Thanks. It took a while to figure out why some pages had no search function. I forgot to add the form action data.

The HTML is slightly less scary than the last version.

Regards...jmcc

hearny · 24-09-2012 10:46pm

Seems to work well, fair play and hope it goes well, I will try to use it as much as possible.

There is a list on the Enterprise Board site with web Designers.
http://www.waterfordceb.com/downloads/web-suppliers.doc

Would be worth sending out a quick mail for a list of sites that they seem relevant. Good for the SEO for them and it will improve your listings too.

I will send you a list of ones I have worked on.

jmcc · 24-09-2012 10:55pm

hearny wrote: »

Seems to work well, fair play and hope it goes well, I will try to use it as much as possible.

There is a list on the Enterprise Board site with web Designers.
http://www.waterfordceb.com/downloads/web-suppliers.doc

Would be worth sending out a quick mail for a list of sites that they seem relevant. Good for the SEO for them and it will improve your listings too.

I will send you a list of ones I have worked on.

Thanks. Some of them may be in the search engine but not the directory. I'll add any that are not included. The links are clean for SEO so anything in the directory is just a raw link.

Regards...jmcc

wonski · 24-09-2012 10:58pm

jmcc wrote: »

It might be working now. I've just switched the DNS so things might be a bit iffy for a while but the 100K index is now live.

http://waterfordireland.com

Regards...jmcc

Just so you know - it is not working for me. The page size is all wrong (using Firefox), and every search comes with error.Not working at all, good luck.

jmcc · 24-09-2012 11:22pm

wonski wrote: »

Just so you know - it is not working for me. The page size is all wrong (using Firefox), and every search comes with error.Not working at all, good luck.

It is a fixed width page. The DNS record had a 3 day time to live so some DNSes might still be using the old site.

Just checked from a few remote servers, the record for the DNS hasn't fully updated yet. It was pointing from to the old site. As I took the old search engine offline, the search results would produce an error.

Regards...jmcc

Sully · 25-09-2012 12:05am

How are you getting page titles / descriptions ?

jmcc · 25-09-2012 12:13am

Sully wrote: »

How are you getting page titles / descriptions ?

The search engine generates them from the site HTML. The directory ones are manually created - generally a quick look at the webpage/site and a few lines. It is not a perfect solution but if anyone wants to include their website, they have the option of writing their own blurb. It is like Twitterising a complete site.

Regards...jmcc

Sully · 25-09-2012 12:18am

Why not just Meta Tags as a priority? Bit dated, but still widely in use?

Might be an idea in the directory to either have it alphabetically sorted or randomly sorted on each visit for fairness - assuming its static and not based on any other data?

jmcc · 25-09-2012 12:32am

Sully wrote: »

Why not just Meta Tags as a priority?

Well it would be great if everyone used Metadata but it might end up with a pile of Joomla titles and descriptions or 'Home' as the title.

Bit dated, but still widely in use?

I have some stats on the whole Irish web that I'll post later today. Some sites have complete metadata sets but most don't.

Might be an idea in the directory to either have it alphabetically sorted or randomly sorted on each visit for fairness - assuming its static and not based on any other data?

I might introduce alphabetical sorting when all the bugs have been worked out. It is largely static for the moment. If it was randomised, some of the search engines might get a bit upset. There's a lot of opportunity for SEO even with Waterford sites.

Regards...jmcc

A Waterford Search Engine?

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