Google and Thunderstone deliver plug and search to the enterprise

Both the Thunderstone and the Google appliances generate some log-based reports, including search activity and the top 100 keywords and queries. The big difference between the two is that Google allows you to export usage logs for analysis in other packages.

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The Google Search Appliance highlights both the advantages and pitfalls of this approach. It's exceedingly simple to set up and requires none of the elaborate document preparation of other enterprise search solutions. Plus, it delivers a familiar, pleasant search experience for employees who search intranets and for visitors to your public Web sites. But for enterprises needing federated search, you're limited to Web resources. If your needs are within those bounds, this is a wise choice.

Thunderstone Search Appliance Version 5

Thunderstone has been supplying search engine technology since 1981, with the company's core Texis application powering its Thunderstone Search Appliance. The software is particularly suitable when you need to sort through a large amount of structured data and unstructured content and then return results in grouped categories. Besides general Web search, catalogs, classified advertising, and document management are a few other typical apps.

Similar to the Google Search Appliance, Thunderstone's small Linux-based appliance is a true turnkey solution. I connected the server to my network and logged in from a PC. The Web interface and forms are organized based on common tasks such as basic walk (crawl). As such, I had my first collection built and a basic search running within a few minutes.

Options on the advanced configuration page are less clear, but once you figure out what they do -- good context help is provided -- Thuderstone's Search Appliance shows exceptional breadth. For example, I enabled searching from JavaScript-based menus, crawled password-protected areas, and specified various file types to search, including Macromedia Flash movies. Additionally, I indexed documents on multiple servers within one collection. Conversely, I easily excluded URLs and content from being crawled.

Released at the end of August, Texis Version 5 includes a number of improvements over the version InfoWorld tested a year ago. Foremost is adaptive indexing. Put simply, the crawler revisits each page or document on a separate schedule based on how often it has changed in the past.

Akin to sponsored links on commercial search engines, Best Bets has potential, but it falls short due to poor implementation. The idea is to enter some keywords and the associated pages you want to fall at the top of the results when someone enters that query. Unfortunately, making this work required completing a number of steps spread across multiple menus.

That wrinkle aside, the Thunderstone Search Appliance performed very well where it counts: delivering relevant results. Thunderstone's advanced search options allowed me to change ranking factors such as the importance of a word's frequency in a document, which helped the few times I wanted better results. Plus, I had no problem configuring search settings so that results were formatted using a custom XSL style sheet.

The system offers some basic real-time reporting based on logs, including Top Queries and Top Query Words. It would be helpful to have charting -- or at least a way to export report data to another app.

Thunderstone crawls a variety of Web content and produces highly relevant results. Administration options are more than enough, as are the ways to customize the search interface's appearance. The

Web Services API enables the appliance to be integrated into other applications, such as portals, via SOAP. (If you need to do heavy customization, Thunderstone offers an upgrade path to their full Texis application.) There's room for improvement in the UI, however, and it would be helpful to have more options, such as related concepts, to format results.

Ultimately, both appliances do what appliances are supposed to do: They just work. Although they don't claim the federated search possible with expensive enterprise search implementations, both Google's and Thunderstone's search appliances are affordable, require little support, and deliver relevant results.