Crawling and indexing sites or documents is as simple as selecting the type of resource (such as a database) and pointing to the server. The control that IT staff has over content extraction and normalization -- without much effort -- is significant.

Using a simple form, for example, I adjusted the HTML converter so that the crawler ignored common navigation that appeared on each page but gave more weight to link and tag density. I also boosted the priority of certain pages that I wanted to appear at the top of results. These tweaks, along with Velocity's own relevance-ranking algorithms (freshness, term proximity, link analysis), generated results that were more accurate than other products I've tested.

Similarly, I adjusted XSL templates to change the appearance and behavior of the search interface and results page. Things got even more interesting when I used "formula-based sorting" to retrieve very specific results, a feature that truly improves the search experience. For instance, based on metadata, I created graphical sliders that allow users to quickly search a Web site's product section and pick servers that employed specific processors. Or, for a real estate site, sliders could allow users to easily select homes in specific price ranges, number of rooms, or land size.

Mashups extraordinaire

Federation is another area where Velocity shows usability and creativity. A few clicks from the administration interface bundled my internal search sources -- so a single query contained relevant results from all my indexes. Furthermore, the software's SOA allows you to just as easily federate searches from more than 60 external sources, such as the BBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and the National Library of Medicine -- along with results from the popular consumer search engines, such as Google, MSN, Yahoo. It's pretty easy to adjust the built-in setups -- or to create your own -- to include most other external sources, such as InfoWorld's own Verity UltraSeek search.