Search facility - how difficult?

[Speaking Clock]

Hi,

I have recently taken over the responsibility for a medium sized .org
website that has been written entirely in .asp. Because there is a highly
restrictive proprietary Content Management System in place, I have only
limited control over the site - I can't even create a new page without
asking the webhost to do it for me (for which there is an hourly charge). I
have asked about changing to a CMS that will give me more control, but the
cost, apparently, would run into several thousands of pounds as the entire
site would have to be rewritten.

I have asked them to place a search button on the front page, which they
claim will be difficult because of the .asp nature of the site, so it will
take them a full day to implement this. The cost will be more than my
organisation can really afford. While I am competent in html, I know
nothing about .asp. Am I being spun a yarn? Is it really that hard to
implement a search facility on an .asp site? I would appreciate opinions
please. I am already thinking seriously about looking elsewhere for
hosting and management.
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Speaking Clock

[Aaron Bertrand [SQL Server MVP]]

> nothing about .asp. Am I being spun a yarn? Is it really that hard to

implement a search facility on an .asp site?

That depends. Is the content of the site hard-coded into the ASP pages, or
does it come from a database? If it is from the database, then it will
certainly take more than an hour or two to implement a decent search
function. If it is in the ASP pages, then they would likely need to
implement something like index server, which is not a trivial undertaking
either.

[Aaron Bertrand [SQL Server MVP]]

> nothing about .asp. Am I being spun a yarn? Is it really that hard to

implement a search facility on an .asp site? I would appreciate opinions
please.

You should also take a look at Google, they have search functionality you
should be able to just drop into your site (but without knowing more about
your CRM system and how it works, I'm not sure how much more complicated it
will get before it works correctly).

[Aaron Bertrand [SQL Server MVP]]

> your CRM system

Sorry, content management, not CRM. Too many projects going on. :-)

[Speaking Clock]

Aaron Bertrand [SQL Server MVP] wrote:

nothing about .asp. Am I being spun a yarn? Is it really that hard
to implement a search facility on an .asp site?
That depends. Is the content of the site hard-coded into the ASP
pages, or does it come from a database?

Not entirely sure, but to add page content I have to use an interface that
looks awfully like something from a database, so I guess it's that. As I
said, the whole system is proprietary, so it's hard to tell exactly what's
going on
If it is from the database,
then it will certainly take more than an hour or two to implement a
decent search function. If it is in the ASP pages, then they would
likely need to implement something like index server, which is not a
trivial undertaking either.

I think what they have in mind is adding to each existing page all the
likely search terms as keywords and then compiling one new document
containing all those search terms.

What has p*ssed me off slightly is that when I asked why the search facility
hadn't been included from the word go, the webhost tried to persuade me that
a lot of site owners these days have decided that search buttons aren't that
important. &^*%!!!

Thanks for your other replies too. I shall investigate the Google idea.

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Speaking Clock