Zoom Seach V5 - XML/RSS output for A9 & Opensearch

[Ray]

Version 5.0 will allow an RSS/XML output option for the CGI version.

This will allow for a number of possibilities:

- By providing OpenSearch compatibility, you will be able to integrate your search engine with a number of OpenSearch platforms. This includes the ability to submit your search engine to an aggregator such as a9.com, or as a search provider to IE7/Firefox browsers. For more information on OpenSearch, see this website:
http://opensearch.a9.com/

- Developers can easily process the XML output from Zoom and post-process or reformat the search results for use in another script or web application.

- The possibility of providing RSS feeds for end-users to monitor the results for a subject they are interested in.

- This will also allow us to develop a load-balancing solution in the future, for searching over several million pages.

[dps1]

Will this RSS/xml output be obtainable via a querystring? I'd hate to have to spider content twice for two instances of the cgi: one for plain text search outputs in a template and another for the RSS outputs.

[Ray]

Yes. You can switch between HTML and RSS/XML output via a URL parameter "zoom_xml".

The option in the Configuration window controls the default behaviour (when no zoom_xml parameter is specified).

So this URL would display the search results for "dog" in HTML:

search.cgi?zoom_query=dog&zoom_xml=0

And this would display the search results for "dog" in XML/RSS:

search.cgi?zoom_query=dog&zoom_xml=1

[dps1]

Perfect! This will really open the door for OpenSearch.

Keep up the great work!

[AG!]

Hello,

Would it be possible for the XML output to include the number of results found in each category, or would that be server intensive?

Thanks

[Ray]

Would it be possible for the XML output to include the number of results found in each category, or would that be server intensive?

Adding such a feature can hinder performance: we don't know the number of results per category until we tally them up - which means it forces the search script to run through the entire set of results everytime. We've also not had anyone else ask for such a feature, so it is not something being considered at this time.

[cchan]

It doesn't appear like the xml output is passing along the highlighted tags for the text (when using the highlight = 1 option)?

[Ray]

That's correct, the XML output does not include highlighting. The main reason for this is that the OpenSearch specifications do not provide a highlight tag. Secondly, highlighting is considered to be a presentation aspect and the XML output is supposed to be content-only. This means that it would be up to you to implement the highlighting (and all other presentation aspects), if you wish to use the XML output.

[tysel]

Great feature for meta search engines.

I currently pull search newsfeeds from Google, MSN and Yahoo into my search pages, and wonder if ZoomEngine is a compliment to those 2 search engines as an add-on to my overall search pages.

[Ray]

Using the XML/RSS output, you can certainly use the OpenSearch format to accumulate search results from other search engines in conjunction with the search results from your own Zoom-created search engine.

There are various solutions for aggregating search results in the OpenSearch format (including the option to roll-your-own). At an enterprise level, we have been working on a solution of our own call "MasterNode" which you can read more about here:
http://www.wrensoft.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1213