Frequently Asked Questions

What is IndexMySite?
It's a service that puts a search feature on your website. If your website is over 10 pages, you probably need to give your website's visitors a way to search your site. IndexMySite provides this capability remotely. You don't have to purchase or install any software. We do all the heavy lifting. We use a software robot - called a spider - to create a search index for your site. This index is stored on the IndexMySite's servers as is the IndexMySite search engine. We email you the simple HTML code you need, to add a search button to your website.

When a visitor searches your site, they see a search results page with hyperlinks that link to your pages. You get to customize the look of the search results page so it conforms to the look and feel of your website.

What are some of the new features of IndexMySite?
Among the many new features of the IndexMySite service are: Secondary URL's
Include multiple sites in one index, or include URL's reachable only via scripts.
Exclusion Masks
Lets you direct the spider to exclude subdirectories, scripts or URLs from the index.
Inclusion Masks
Lets you direct the spider to follow and index only links which contain a specific character sequence.
Link backs
A link on the search results page to anywhere you want. You specify the URL and the link back text.
Usage Reports on demand
Find out what your visitors are searching for, anytime you want.
Customizable Results page
IndexMySite gives you control over fonts, colors, and styles. In addition, you can now:

• Add or change your company logo.
• Change its position on the page.
• Add or change the background image or color.
• Control the search button's color and text.

What kinds of documents can IndexMySite index?
Most websites consist of HTML documents. But IndexMySite can handle many other document formats as well, including PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, Corel WordPerfect, Postscript, RTF, MP3, image files and more. ( see documents)

If I have multiple sites do I need multiple accounts?
No. With one Account, you can have many site indexes (up to the total page maximum - 500 for free accounts and up to 25,000 for paying accounts). (see What constitutes a document)

An Account identifies you. It provides us with an email address where we can notify you of system issues. For paying customers, an Account provides the necessary credit information as well.

If you want to be billed separately for different website indexes, create a separate Account for each. NOTE: Each Account must have a different email address.

Will IndexMySite index non-english language documents?
Yes. IndexMySite recognizes the ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) character set which represents most western European languages. IndexMySite also allows users to include their own stopword list. (see character code table)

Here`s an example (hint: search for linux).

Can I index pages protected with Basic Authentication?
Yes. You supply the username/password data (in our secure form) and the indexer uses the information to access the protected pages during indexing.

How much does the service cost?
IndexMySite provides two (2) service plans. The first plan (Free) allows the user to create multiple search indexes of up to 500 total pages. Under this plan, the Search Results page will contain advertising banners from Tippecanoe and 3rd party companies and organizations. The second plan (Pay) allows the user to create multiple search indexes of up to 25,000 total pages. Under this plan, NO advertising banners will be displayed on the Search Results page. Instead, the user pays a small fee, depending on the total quantity of pages on all of the sites indexed under the users' account. (see rates)(see Accounts). In addition, paying subscribers can submit their own ad banner which will be displayed on non-paying subscriber's results pages.

What are the advantages of a paid versus free account?
The following tables shows a comparison of a paid account versus a free account.

	Option 1 (free)	Option 2 (paid)
Banner-free Results page	No	Yes
Maximum page count	500	25,000
Scheduled re-indexing	No	Yes
Free advertising	No	Yes

Can I use IndexMySite even if I don't host my own site?
Yes you can. Just submit your URL. We'll email you some HTML code for your search button. You can paste this code into your web page and then send the new page to your ISP. Or you can simply send the HTML code to your ISP and ask them to place it on the page you specify.

IMPORTANT. Type your homepage URL into your browser's address field and go to your website. Did the URL change? This means it is being redirected. For example, you enter http://home.domain.com/~mypage/ and the URL changes to to http://members.domain.com/~mypage/. When you submit your URL to IndexMySite, use this second URL.

Are Advertising banners displayed on the Search Results page?
If you subscribe to the basic free service - yes we do.
However, for as little as $9.95 a month you can subscribe to the AD-FREE service which eliminates all banner ADs from your search results page. Plus, paying subscribers can submit their own banner ad which will be displayed on non-paying subscriber's results pages.

What kind of searching can I do?
The Indexmysite search engine supports a variety of features -- including boolean syntax searching, full-text keyword searching, natural language searching, and soundex (sounds like) searching.

Can I customize the search results page?
Yes. Indexmysite provides a powerful tool which allows you to fully customize the look of the search results page to match the style of your own site. You control fonts, colors, text size, etc. You can even add your own company logo to the results page.

Can I schedule my site for re-indexing?
Yes -- You can schedule your site for re-indexing weekly or monthly. Plus you can specify the day or date on which your site will be re-indexed. You just set it and forget it.

Can I index my PDF documents?
Yes -- Indexmysite reads and indexes your PDF documents, page by page. When you search, Indexmysite takes you to the exact page containing the information you searched for.

Can I get a usage report for my index?
Yes -- Anytime you want to see what users are searching for, just click on the "View my report" link. The report shows you the words users are searching for - and even the words that are not found.

Can I search for phrases?
Yes - if yours is an English site. We detect and index phrases in your pages. To search for a phrase, just put your query in quotes. The Indexmysite search engine will give extra weight to those documents which have the phrases you're looking for.

Can I search for numbers?
Yes -- Indexmysite can index and find numbers in your web pages. But to minimize space in the index, we handle them somewhat differently than words. First we divide large numbers into 3-digit segments. For example, the number 10324 becomes 10 and 324. If you search for 10234, you will find occurances of 10 and 234, even if they are not together. To find them together, just put quotes around them like this: "10234".

Can I direct the indexer to index only pages I want it to?
Yes -- Indexmysite can be direct in a number of ways. If you have a robot.txt file, the indexer will read it and follow its directions. You can also specify directories or pages to exclude by entering patterns in the exclude list. You can exclude types of image files by specifying them on the index-options page.

Can I have more than one index?
Yes you can. You can have as many as you want - up to 500 total pages for non-paying subscribers, and up to 25,000 total pages for paying subscribers. Plus, you can search your indexes individually, or together. Note If you have a requirement for a larger service, please contact us. We have successfully hosted million page-plus size sites.

Can I put 2 or more sites in the same index?
Yes you can. IndexMySite now supports Secondary URL's which allows you to include as many URL's as you want.

How do I advertise with IndexMySite?
Check out our advertising rates. For very little money, you can place your banners before a large audience.
Advertise on IndexMySite. Plus, if you use the Indexmysite service for your own site, your ad is free.