I posted this today on the External Search Engines page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_search_engines), thought it might be worthwhile to cc it here:

Has anyone explored the Atomz Search application for use on Wikipedia? (see http://www.atomz.com/applications/search/ and also their FAQ http://www.atomz.com/applications/search/faq.htm ).

I use the free Express version for my personal site, and it works very well, is extraordinarily customizable, easy to integrate into a site, and you control ''when'' content is indexed. I've seen it on many other pro sites as well.

It's a pay service for sites with more than 500 pages (heh), and of course there's no pricing on their website -- it's ye olde "contact our sales staff" routine. It may be too pricey for a site as large and index-intensive as this one, but it should at least be worth exploring..... especially since the search application in hosted on '''''their''''' servers, not ours. And who knows, they may be willing to negotiate a deal with a site as prominent as ours is becoming.

Perhaps Jimbo or someone else with an idea of how much we would be willing to spend to have a reliable internal search mechanism could contact them...?

CatherineMunro

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artslave@usa.net