Similarity Searching

The search script has a feature called "Find Similar" which gives a link for each result record that, when clicked on, finds more pages within the database similar to that result. This feature may also be accessed from any web page by placing the appropriate URL on it. You may search for pages in your database that are similar to any other web page whether it's in the database or not. The URL for finding similar pages has the form shown below.

Note: On Windows the /cgi-bin/texis/ portion of the following URLs will be something like /scripts/texis.exe/ but may vary depending upon your installation.

http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html?pr=default&ref=http://example.com/somepage.html

If the page containing the similarity URL resides on the same server as the search the http://www.example.com portion may be omitted:

/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html?pr=default&ref=http://example.com/somepage.html

If the profile to be searched is "default" the pr=default& portion may be omitted:

/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html?ref=http://example.com/somepage.html

If the profile to be searched is anything other than "default" that must be specified instead of default:

/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html?pr=myprofile&ref=http://example.com/somepage.html

If the page to be located is the page the URL is on the ref=URL portion may be omitted, as the HTTP Referer is used by default:

/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html
or
/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html?pr=myprofile

The similar function will look up the desired URL in the database or, if it's not in the database, fetch it from the webserver (if Prevent Find Similar Fetch is disabled, here). It will then search the database looking for pages similar to the specified page.

You could place a URL like this on all of your pages so users could, with one click, find all pages on your site similar in content to the one they were reading.


Copyright © Thunderstone Software     Last updated: Oct 5 2023
Copyright © 2024 Thunderstone Software LLC. All rights reserved.