Search results show the same TITLE tags. Can be changed??

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've downloaded and tested the zoom search engine. The site of our school is in php + MySQL.

The indexing works fine (as far as I can see, and I still need to exclude some parts of the site)

BUT: the site is built with modules and they all have the same <TITLE> tag as search result. When I un-check the TITLE tag in the zoom configuration the search result shown is the URL but that is too difficult for the end-user

So, is it not possible to change the setting of the search.php or other file in a way that the search result shows a particular value of one of the MySQL tables?


the URL of the test site:
http://www.pcvo-gent.net/__nieuw2__oud/modules/search/search.php

If this can be solved, I must say I'm impresed and I'm going to buy the Professional edition.

Thx for any help,

Bram

[wrensoft]

Your solution is to change our search script to read your SQL database to retrieve a value to be used in the title. This is not the best solution.

The best solution is to change your PHP module, that generates your pages, to read your SQL database and output a meaningful HTML <title> </title> tag.

This will fix the problem for Zoom, and it will also help people who bookmark pages on your site (which use the title as the bookmark) and it will also help external search engine like Google index your site.

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David

[Anonymous]

OK, but how do you do that? I'm no php specialist ...

Can you help me on that?

Bram

[wrensoft]

Re-writing your existing PHP script is outside of the scope of our normal support. We could do it as consulting but would need to charge you for our time.

There are lots of good books about PHP and SQL. For example,
"PHP and MySQL Web Development ",
by Luke Welling, Laura Thomson

"Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional",
by W. J. Gilmore


There are also a lot of web sites on the topic. For example,

http://www.createafreewebsite.net/phpmysql/phpmysql_introduction.html
http://sandwil.beigetower.org/PHPsqlCourse/SQL01.php
http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql/1

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David

[Anonymous]

Thx for the reply and the information.

I will have a look at the links and try to figure it out ...


What would it cost - approximately - the consulting fee??


Bram

[wrensoft]

We didn't write the script you are using on your site and haven't seen the existing code, nor the layout or content of you database.

So it is hard to give an estimate on how long it would take. The most cost effective option might be to contact the author of the script and ask them for a modification. They should be able to do the work quicker as they are already familiar with the DB & script.

You may even find there is already a facility in the script to specify a title per page.

The script modifications could be as short as 3 or 4 lines of code. But there might be more work to be done if new tables need to be added to the database. New tables might also have a flow on effect to other scripts using the same database. (e.g. database backup & restore scripts).

If you want us to quote a fixed price, we would really want a copy of your web site and database beforehand.

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David

[Anonymous]

You're absolutely right.

I will contact the author.

If necessary I will contact you again.

Thx,

Bram