Step 2: Create a Profile

A profile is a collection of data (URLs/documents) to be searched, plus the settings that control that search; a profile must be created and walked before searches can occur.

On the Profiles page, a profile may already have been created by Thunderstone if you requested it when ordering. If so, you may click on the profile name and proceed to the last step, searching. Otherwise, create a new profile.

Enter a name for the new profile, and choose a profile type. A Standard profile is just that - a standard profile for walking - and is usually what you'll want to create, especially for the first profile. A Meta Search profile does not walk data itself, but merely searches and aggregates results from one or more other profiles; see here for details. After setting a profile name and type, hit the Create Profile button to create the profile.

A new profile will be created but a site walk/index will not be started yet. You are then presented with the main walk settings page. Use the Base URL setting to specify the starting point of your walk. This is often the homepage of a site, or the sitemap page.