Do you have a large site with lots of interesting stuff in it? Is it getting harder and harder to list everything you have and to help your visitors find the information in an easy, logical way? Do you need your own Search Engine?

Well ... why not?

You've put a huge amount of work into your site and, in spite of your careful attention to making your site easy to navigate, many of your visitors may not be able to find what they're looking for.

AltaVista, and InfoSeek are just a few of the powerful Search Engines that scour the Internet on your behalf. Now, it is possible to have a Search Engine that indexes and provides information just for your web site. And because your web site is highly targeted (it is, isn't it?), your visitors won't have to wade through pages of irrelevant search results!

In addition to offering your visitors a really great service, having your own Search Engine gives you information about what visitors are looking for and what they want. By tracking information about what visitors at your site are looking for, you can further refine your site to give them exactly what they want!

You need a local Search Engine if:

• Your site is content rich, with many pages and lots of different bits of information.
• Your site is constantly and rapidly growing, adding new information and topics.
• The data at your site is getting harder and harder to find.
• Visitors have to drill down through several levels to get at information.
• Visitors can't find information.

For example, let's say you have a site that focuses on car racing. At your site you have posted page upon page of information about the various race cars, venues, schedules, and race car drivers, along with all sorts of trivia about races past and present.

Visitors to your site may have trouble locating specific pieces of information... such as a bio on Stirling Moss. They might know he is a driver ... but past or present? Where would they even start to look? That's where the local Search Engine comes in, taking your visitor straight to the past racing great, Stirling Moss.

Another example would be if you had a site focusing on health and you featured hundreds of different kinds of health food products and vitamins for sale. Without a Search Engine, a visitor coming to your site for the first time might give up looking for specific information about "lapachol." On the other hand, if you had your own Search Engine, the visitor would be immediately directed to information on the effects of lapachol on the immune system ... and a product containing lapachol.

You don't need a local Search Engine if:

• You have a small, easy to navigate site
• Your site sells one product and you lead visitors through your sales copy step-by-step
• You have a limited amount of information
• The information at your site is easy to find and get to

The more information your site has, the more pages it has, the harder it becomes to navigate. The fact is that in spite of your best efforts to make navigation easy and painless, the more there is, the more help your visitors need.

A visitor may have found something the first time they visited your site ... but didn't bookmark the exact page. Now they're back and looking for this tidbit again... a local Search Engine will help them get to what they want quickly and easily! And they'll love you for it.

Now, contrary to what you might think, it's not hard to get a Search Engine up and running. In fact, you could have a Search Engine installed at your site in as little as 10 minutes.

Here is a list of some of the many services available. While some of them are free, some charge based on the number of pages you need indexed:

Freefind's Search Engine is definitely worth a look. In addition to keeping visitors at your site, it provides your visitor's with three options. 1) Site Search - enables visitors to search for text strings. 2) Site Maps - gives your visitors an overall site map. 3) The What's New Page - lets repeat visitors know what changes have been made since their last visit. Easy to install and easy to use ... this handy service has received rave reviews from a number of well known web reviewers. And ... it's free!

SiteMiner.com has a free version and a pro version. The pro version comes unbranded and will index your site and store your indexing information in a remote database. When a visitor enters a search into the search form, SiteMiner receives the query, formats the results, and sends them back in an HTML form with links directly to the pages on your site.

IndexMySite4Free is another great Search service. Sites with up to 5000 pages can use it for Free for the first 6 months. If you want to continue using it without advertising after the first 6 months, it costs you a giant $29. If you have more than 5000 pages, you can purchase their services for as little as 1/2 a cent a page per month. You might also be interested in their offline indexing services. And ... the thing I really appreciate about this service is their free Search Reports. The report gives you information on how often your site is being searched, and what search terms are being used!

And of course, you can also tap into some high powered and sophisticated technology. However, it is going to cost you!

Take a look at InfoSeek's Ultraseek Server. You get all the power of a major Search Engine for a price based on the number of pages at your site. If you are interested in trying it out, they have a free trial period, though I couldn't find any information about how long that trial period is!

AltaVista Search software harnesses the power of another of the large popular Search Engines. They have a free trial download available. You can index up to 3000 documents for free ... and then the price goes up dramatically!

My advice is to try your "pick" out for a few weeks ... and then if you like it, get the pro service or pay the price so that you aren't hosting any kind of advertising.

Installing a Search Engine at your site is fast and easy, and it will make your web site look very sophisticated. Most visitors will assume that a built-in Search Engine takes wild amounts of money and expertise. Therefore, this professional look and service will really add "value" to your web site.