Open Source Search Engine Implementation – Solr Lucene Search Integration

An Introduction to Results Position Analysis

In a previous post, we looked at the first two components of the success of search: the density of highlighted search terms and the placement within the search engine results page. However, there are times when the science of a search engine does not match the art of marketing. It is the role of a
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The Failure of Search at FedBizOpps

The United States government procures most of its goods and services through competitive bidding. The notices of its requirements are posted on a centralized website called FedBizOpps, www.fbo.gov. Contracting officers and liaisons of government agencies to private sector providers recite from rote the message that everyone should search for opportunities on FedBizOpps. Yet, the system
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HIMSS HealthIT Wrapup

After a couple of exhausting days at HIMSS last week, where I was overwhelmed both by being a first time visitor to the glitz of Las Vegas and the sheer size of the HIMSS exhibit hall, I’ve come to the conclusion that HealthIT is currently running on two separate parallel tracks. The first track is
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AWS Ephemeral Storage

You may not know this, but each EC2 instance has available to it lots of “local” storage. For example, the Large instances that I’ve been using have two 420 GiB volumes available to them. HOWEVER, when you launch the typical “EBS-backed” AMIs from the management console these volumes won’t be available to you. There are
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An Introduction to Results Utility Positioning

When a user enters in a search query and is taken to a search engine results page, then the probability of clicking on a result is a function of three items: The density of the searched for terms found in the search snippet. Ideally, these are somehow highlighted – a different color, italics, bolding –
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OSC Launches http://www.smallbizcontracting.com

At OpenSource Connections, we focus on solving the search problems that others face. One of the problems that we have noticed is that tools for U.S. government acquisition officers are poor at best. The SBA’s Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS) and Central Contractor Registry (CCR) only provide the scantest of information to an acquisition officer
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Talking Solr in Las Vegas, February 22, 2012 7:00 PM

Do you like Solr? Live in Las Vegas? Are you going to be in Vegas on Wednesday, February 22, 2012? Like free dinner? If this sounds like you, then join Eric Pugh and John Berryman at Mundo, 495 S. Grand Central Pkwy. A-116, Las Vegas, NV 89106 at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, February 22, 2012.
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Identifying Anomalous Driving Patterns Using Hadoop and Cassandra

Overview In order to identify unusual behaviors of tracked targets in a large and ever-expanding data set of raw geospatial track data, we built a analytics application based on Cassandra, Hadoop, and proprietary geospatial algorithms. These algorithms consumed track data and generated summary data, both of which were stored in Cassandra. The processing engine for
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Patent Troll Shows Need To Improve Search To Disprove

As the “father of the Internet,” Tim Berners-Lee, got onto a plane to head to the burgeoning tech center of Tyler, Texas (all sarcasm intended), he must have wondered how he found himself in this position. Berners-Lee is testifying at a court case of a patent holder who is suing Google, Amazon, and others regarding
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Why use a Javascript interface for Solr?

Search UIs are getting richer and more interesting by the day. Google page snapshots, animated disclosures of richer data on mouse over, and endless pagination are great examples. Often this type of functionality has a dark side. As each of these features is layered on and integrated with our HTML, it can begin to feel like death by a thousand paper cuts.

Indexing Chinese in Solr

Recently, we had a project where we helped a client index a corpus of Chinese language documents in Solr. We have asked Dan Funk, a committer to Project Blacklight to provide a guest blog post for us on the details of how to approach indexing Chinese, particularly when you are a non-speaker. Take it away,
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Apache Solr 3 Enterprise Search Server Published

We are pleased to announce that Eric Pugh and David Smiley have published the second Solr book in publication, Apache Solr 3 Enterprise Search Server. It is an update to the blockbuster Solr 1.4 Enterprise Search Server, and is available at Packt Publishing. “This is an important update and covers all of the features that
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You Don’t Know Zipf About Your Landing Pages

Unless you have a very well-known brand where people type your URL to visit your site, then chances are that most of your traffic comes from an external search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. A quick analysis can tell you that, relative to the total number of keywords visitors use to get to
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OpenSource Connections Adds Site Search Analytics Service

At OpenSource Connections, we strongly believe that search is not simply a matter of installing a search engine, putting in a search box, and forgetting about it. Yet, that’s what we find most site owners do, and when they do that, they leave the door open to customer dissatisfaction and lost revenue opportunities. That’s why
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Netflix, Qwikster, and the Potential Failure of Search User Experience

Yesterday, Netflix announced the separation of its DVD-by-mail division into a new entity called Qwikster. The new company will have a separate website and focus entirely on mail delivery of DVD and video game rentals. It also will, in a few weeks, have a new website. In splitting the previously Siamese twins, Netflix also decided
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Search Engine Testing and Apache Lucene Eurocon Oh My!

Eric Pugh got notified today that he’s been accepted to speak on “Better Search Engine Testing” at the 2011 Apache Lucene Eurocon. So, what, you may ask, does search engine testing entail? Great search implementation isn’t just about installing Solr and making it run a millisecond faster. It’s about setting up the conditions to ensure
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