Hi, I looked around a LOT ( Almost a day ) to find answers but to no avail! Hopefully you guys can shed some light on it.... Basically I am in process of building a portal/meta search page which will search the portals/directories ( not the major search engines ) related to electronics, using THEIR search engines with keywords provided on my site and show the results on a single page. First, I wanna know if its legal to do so? or do I need permission from each site to do so? ( I will be providing linkbacks to them ). Secondly, is there any script or template out there which will make the process easier? Any help will be highly appreciated and rightfully shown appreciation on the project website. Regds, Nrupesh
No scraping isn't legal on most directories/search engines. Look at their terms of use. You will find out. All major Meta-Search Engines pay for the data that they query in a per thousand searches bases, not much less than a dollar. Hopes that helps.
Hi Nrupesh, I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Allfeeds.com has a couple of programs that may provide a solution for you: Customized Search Portal and XML Feed. The Customized Search Portal is a single page with search functionality, directory, and targeted news, weather, sports, etc., along with contextual links from advertisers. The XML Feed provides a single directory page with search functionality and targeted feeds from advertisers. You can click on the link in my signature if you want more information. HTH, Sam
I am playing with learning to write a meta-search myself. I would like your opinion on it. I am not monetizing it because I need to get all the legal stuff down, I figure that is where most people get in trouble. http://www.cinchsearch.com chad
Hey Chad, I took a quick look at cinchsearch, and it looks pretty good! I like cluster navigation on the left, as well, which I think is where SEs will probably move in the future. Nice work, and best of luck. Sam