Archie-Like Indexing of the Web
ALIWEB provides a tool allowing users to just keep track of the services
they provide, in such a way that automatic programs can simply pick up
their descriptions, and combine them into a searchable database.
Such a database can be as up-to-date as a Web Wanderer, but doesn't need
to traverse the Web, and it uses index files written for the purpose, so
there is no loss of context.
Key Links
URL for Front
Page: http://web.nexor.co.uk/public/aliweb/aliweb.htm
URL for Forms Search Pages:
URL for
Help
Page:
http://web.nexor.co.uk/public/aliweb/doc/introduction.html
URL for Author's
Page: http://web.nexor.co.uk/users/mak/mak.html
Home Organization: Nexor
Organization
- AliWeb is solely a Web search engine, based on a
Perl script that searches an internal database.
- Features and Limitations
- The server accepts Multiple Keywords, Substrings, or Regular
Expressions.
- There are no provisions for Boolean or Proximity Searching.
- Additional controls let you restrict searches to certain content
types or documents from a particular Internet domain.
- You can specify a maximum number of matches, and sorts all results
by match quality.
- The user can specify which document fields to search, including
titles, descriptions, keywords, or document URL's.
- The server supports only Forms-based searches.
- The server does not restrict documents by content.
Administration
- Documents are added to the database by users who create an index to their
own collections, and register that index with the AliWeb server. The
server will then automatically retrieve that file thereafter, and apply
any changes to its internal database.
- AliWeb runs on a single computer, but is mirrored by
several
other servers. The Nexor server seems to be very responsive to user
requests, and completes most searches within 10 seconds.
- The server indexes over 6,000 links, which are added or modified by the
very users who maintain the documents. However, I had difficulty picking
keywords which would give any results.
- Additional Services
- The server describes how to create index files and register your
own documents.
- For administrators that want to create their own mirrors, the
server provides instructions and install files.
Evaluation
Example Usage
Demonstrate a sample search session explicitly listing:
- Topic
- Keyword(s), Boolean search controls
- Documents delivered
- Output format
fprefect@umich.edu - 6/12/95