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    Howdy,

    Does Live Search API 2.0 support site searching?  for example retrieving results from only a number of websites?  If so what are the parameters and how many sites does the API support?

    Thanks in Advance! 



    Saturday, December 13, 2008 5:10 PM

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    No problem - I am here to answer your questions and to help you solving your problems using our service.

     

    "site:abc.com OR site:123.net OR site: xyz.edu"

     

    will return results from all three domains and only from them, including the third level domains (e.g. def.abc.com and 456.123.net would be included in the search).

    The order will be determined by the relevance algorithm: there is no a priori guarantee of which domain will provide results first.

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro

     

     

     

    Tuesday, December 23, 2008 3:36 AM

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    Sure it does.

     

    Just add as many site: clauses as you need to the query string. Beware though that the back-end may reject queries that are deemed too complex.

     

    For example, to search for "windows" on msn.com and microsoft.com you would send the query

     

    Code Snippet
    windows site:msn.com OR site:microsoft.com

     

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro

    Sunday, December 14, 2008 7:47 AM
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    I have just realized that I answered only half of your original question: how many sites are supported is a hard question to answer. By just sending site: clauses in OR, you will get blocked on two levels: on one side the backend may reject queries that it deems to complex, on the other the query may exceed the 1500 characters after which some verticals may truncate the string length.

    This said, we have a solution for managed partners that allows up to thousands of sites to be added to the list, but it uses a different feature of the engine that is currently not open to the larger public.

     

    As a rule of thumb If you need more than a couple of dozens of sites you may want to contact api_tou and talk with our bizdev guys.

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro 

    Sunday, December 14, 2008 7:56 AM
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    Alessandro,

    I have tried the following query and get the same results with "site:" or without. It does not seem to work.

    === Query ===

    http://api.search.live.net/xml.aspx?AppId=ABC123&Market=en-US&Query=windows&Sources=web+spell&Web.Count=10&xmltype=elementbased&site:microsoft.com

    Thanks
    Sunday, December 14, 2008 4:41 PM
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    site: is a clause in the query, not a parameter.

     

    The right URL to search for "windows" on *.microsoft.com would be:

     

    http://api.search.live.net/xml.aspx?AppId=ABC123&Market=en-US&Query=windows%20site:microsoft.com&Sources=web+spell&Web.Count=10&xmltype=elementbased

    (note also that xmltype=elementbased is redundant - it is the default)

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro

    Monday, December 15, 2008 9:54 AM
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    Adding a site: parameter to the query does not work for me because this requires that all the pages be in the standard public catalog.  I need more control than that.  I have found that it can take weeks for pages to get indexed.  We need the ability to create and query a custom catalog.

     

    Shan

    www.shanmcarthur.net

    Monday, December 15, 2008 6:22 PM
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    Please tell me more. What is the custom catalog? Is it made of structured or unstructured data? Why wouldn't you use a database on your site? How would you blend the results with search? How would you expect the solution to work?

     

    Even though I don't have a turnkey solution for you now, I really want to understand better the needs in this space directly from who is experiencing them.

     

    Thanks in advance

     

    --Alessandro

    Wednesday, December 17, 2008 3:09 AM
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    When I was referring to a "custom catalog" what I had in mind was a private search catalog that I could update on demand.  The problem with the public search catalog is that it does not update very frequently, and therefore, new site pages would not be available in search results.  To use Live Search for an on-site search engine, I need to have control to trigger a new crawl of the site map or submitting a page manually.  This is how Google Custom Search works.  I was hoping that Microsoft had something like Google.

     

    Here is my scenario.  As a CMS vendor that now supports Azure, we are moving some sites over to Azure.  One of those sites is my blog site (www.shanmcarthur.net) and that site has a search mechanism on the site.  For on-premise deployment, we use Index Server for the search catalog.  Unfortunately, Index Server is not available in Azure, and therefore I need to find another site search mechanism.  Now here is some information about my experience.  I published a couple of new articles the other day to point to a couple of Channel 9 videos that I was in.  I created a Google Custom catalog before publishing the articles.  I could click on their on-demand index, and within 4 hours, the new articles were in the catalog.  Yahoo also picked up the new articles within 24 hours.  Now for Live, it hasn't indexed my site for over a week now, and the new articles are not in the catalog.  The end result is that if I use Live Search on my site and limit the results to my site, and the search is using the public catalog, the search results will not include my new pages, which is completely unacceptable.

     

    You ask why I wouldn't use a database on my site.  First off, I will be using Windows Azure, which doesn't have a SQL database to use.  Secondly, there is a lot more to search than a straight SQL query.  Search engines have a concept of relevency, and they also have things like spelling and tenses of words, phrase and proximity, and many other things that just are not possible using a custom solution.  It would be a preference to be able to use a search service.

     

    I cannot believe that Microsoft doesn't have a solution for this yet.  If you consider what is happening in Microsoft strategies, cloud services are really taking off this year with Windows Azure, SQL Data Services, .Net Services, and Live Services.  I would HIGHLY recommend to the Live Search team that they consider new services that would be appropriate for driving the site search mechanisms for sites hosted in Azure.  Don't let Google take all your customers.

     

    I would be happy to provide additional requirements if you like.

     

    Thanks,

    Shan McArthur

    www.shanmcarthur.net

    Wednesday, December 17, 2008 3:30 PM
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    Thank you, Shan. You have no idea how useful this direct information has been.

     

    --Alessandro

     

    Thursday, December 18, 2008 3:31 AM
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    The following query  with two "site:"  parameters does not return any results:

    http://api.search.live.net/xml.aspx?AppId=ABC123&Market=en-US&Query=windows%20site:microsoft.com%20site:aol.com&Sources=web+spell&Web.Count=10&xmltype=elementbased

     
    Friday, December 19, 2008 9:28 PM
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    If you are not familiar with the advanced query operators in a search engine, it will help to get more familiar with http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_searchv1&market=en-US&querytype=keyword&query=redliub&tmt=&domain=search.live.com:80

     

    and

     

    http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_searchv1&market=en-US&querytype=keyword&query=redliub&tmt=&domain=search.live.com:80

     

    In this case you need to OR the site: operators - by default they are in AND, and, of course, return nothing.

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro

    Saturday, December 20, 2008 4:49 AM
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    Ok I have reviewed the advanced query section you provided, and have gotten site results to work with one site and using the "OR" but can not get live search to retreive results from more than one site at once .  Is multiple site search not supported by LIve search?  
    Sunday, December 21, 2008 7:23 PM
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    I am not sure I understand the question.

     

    I tried this:

    Code Snippet
    http://api.search.live.net/xml.aspx?AppId=YourAppIDHere&Market=en-US&Query=connection%20news%20(site:microsoft.com%20OR%20site:aol.com)&Sources=web+spell&Web.Count=10&xmltype=elementbased

     

     

     

    And it returns as expected results from both domains.

     

    How is it different from what you are trying and seeing?

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro

    Sunday, December 21, 2008 11:44 PM
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    Alessandro,

    Perhpas I was the one confused so if I use the following:

    "site:abc.com OR site:123.net OR site: xyz.edu" 

    Results for all 3 sites will be returned and if so in what order?

    Thanks!

    Monday, December 22, 2008 12:18 AM
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    Alessandro,

    Perhaps I was the one confused so if I use the following:

    "site:abc.com OR site:123.net OR site: xyz.edu" 

    Results for all 3 sites will be returned and if so in what order?

    Thanks!

    Monday, December 22, 2008 12:19 AM
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    No problem - I am here to answer your questions and to help you solving your problems using our service.

     

    "site:abc.com OR site:123.net OR site: xyz.edu"

     

    will return results from all three domains and only from them, including the third level domains (e.g. def.abc.com and 456.123.net would be included in the search).

    The order will be determined by the relevance algorithm: there is no a priori guarantee of which domain will provide results first.

     

    HTH

     

    --Alessandro

     

     

     

    Tuesday, December 23, 2008 3:36 AM