You might have toyed with the notion of provide a search tool for your site visitors, but couldn't decide if it was worth it. This newsletter and Web site help you answer any basic question you might have. One of the first features they offer is a basic essay on who needs a search tool on their site and why.

In addition to listing search tools for any platform from Windows to Macintosh to Unix, they review each of the tools and show you were to get them. I commend them on putting together and highly valuable, easily navigatible Web site, and the newsletters piqued my interest, too.

Here's a sampling from a recent newsletter I found in their archives:

"We wanted to know why Web site administrators may or may not install search on their sites. Those who have say they did so to improve navigation on their sites. Of those who haven't, a majority says that they haven't had time, or the search engines software is too complex. Only a few say that there is no need on their site, or that their site doesn't serve enough content.

"Site size, audience and content affects how Web site administrators approach search and what makes them more likely to implement it. As we expected, larger sites tend to have search, to provide an alternate navigation path. Sites with certain audiences, such as medical professionals, tend to have search, perhaps to conform to the audience expectations. We were surprised at the number of sites which targeted information professionals but did not have search installed. The sites in our survey with three or more languages, which also tended to be large sites, all have search. And a large number of sites are now serving PDF, word processor files and spreadsheets, all of which can be indexed by some search engines.

"The other important factor in search installation is the location of the server. It's much easier to install a new server script or application on a local machine, so sites with in-house servers were much more likely to have search. Those which are co located at an ISP, and especially those hosted by a Web presence provider tend not to.