Search Function For Web Site

[Jeff F]

Anyone here have any experience with these apps? I've looked at three or four that catalog all of your content and the applicable links and database them for you. The search function then searches the database for applicable hits when the viewer types in what he's looking for.
Most of the ones I've looked at so far are easy to use (a good thing for me!) and in the $40-$50 range but they seem to display alot of extra data that I'm unable to filter out.
I've looked at a few of the free apps that are available but they seem to be "tricky" to install.
I'm hoping to find something thats easy to configure and easy to install.
Any suggestions?
Thanks !

[kobra]

Jeff,

What type of website are you trying to catalog? If it is content rich like news, tips blog and the like, something like Joomla, xoops, or simpler wordpress might assist you in both content entry and management.

[Jeff F]

Hi Kobra;
The site is a repository for tequila news and more importantly tequila based recipes. I went with SiteSearchPro for the catalogging and web searches and it seems to be doing the job just fine.
I looked at Joomla and it may be of value to me but I haven't looked into it deeply enough to form an opinion one way or the other. Have you used Joomla? If so, whats your opinion of it? Is there some overhead involved in transferring my site over to Joomla or is it pretty straight forward?
Thanks for the response!
Jeff
www.tequilatrippin.com

[kobra]

Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, and others are all "Content Managers"...I along with a fairly large following, favor Joomla for it's UI and ease of managing the content. Also, for the extensive library of modules that are available.

Is there some overhead involved in transferring my site over to Joomla or is it pretty straight forward?

One does not literally transfer an existing site into Joomla or any of the other content systems.

They are divided basically into 2 parts:
1. Being the skin or the look. And one can match this to an existing site or refresh an old html site with better styling etc.

2. Being the content, be it FAQ's, BLOG, forum, News, Articles, and what not. The current contents of your site can be pasted into pages inside of Joomla, and then managed with the Joomla tools.

You can write your own skin/template, use/modify one of the included or free ones, purchase a pre-made template that you like, or hire a custom one created for you.

It is a different way of creating, and managing sites and once you use and begin to understand it you will wonder how you ever did it the html way.