Hi,

i don't know how to explain, What I want to do (my project) But I will try my best to explain it here.

I am planning to make search engine which consists big
amount of links. I know it is not new issue, everyone here wants to develop a search engine. But, the One I want to make is in my native (Arabic) langauge. Upto now, There is a lack of good search engines in arabic langage. There are directories of links but not exactly the search engines.

I have, now book(s) contaning more then 1 million URLs. Divided into more then three thousand catagories and subs.

I wonder if the new version of SQL links can support me of adding those numbers and spider them. Which will make the number of the links more then four to five millions. I know
a small spider will take a lot of time to spider them and requries a enough bandwidth and even the normal (perl) spider will not do it. at all!

So, I am planning to buy a spider called "SMART SPIDER" can be found here :
http://www.smart-spider.com chack [FetchRover].

Can any expert, check the site and tell me is this going to do the job for me or not. -- First Question.

Secondly, What is the hardware requirment of the server.
can someone tell me exactly what type of specific server has to have and so, I can perchase the server and host in some in ISP (c-location).

Third question is the new version of SQL Links can work with ORACLE database if yes then, do I need to have background about DBA to set it up, or there will be no problem. Like mySQL,

4th Question: I am not familar with UNIX systems. So, Can I install it on W2K Advanced Server. Or it will not work properly. Becuase of one of the threads I saw alex telling that the CGI will not work properly on Windows NT Servers.
Like it works in UNIX.

These are my basic questions, I appricate if anyone can suggest me what to do, becuase I am going to finalize my budget for this project.

Thanks and Regards;

Faisal Saud

1) Links SQL does have decent functionality for non-english characters. Use the search-ni.cgi file.

2) Gossamer Threads is improving their Spider application and I think it will be released with the next version of Links SQL.

3) Hardware requirements...this has been discussed many times in this forum...Here are some basic requirements:

* Minimal 128 MG of Ram
* 233 Processor
* Minimal of 4 GIGs of disk space (for your particular site)

Software:

* MySQL, MSSQL, or Oracle (I believe that with the next version, which includes a SQL engine...more DBIs may be supported)
* Perl 5.00503 or above

Server Type:

* UNIX or NT (however, it will function better in UNIX)
* Apache is the best...although some Links SQL are using RedHat.

4) In terms of processing...CGI is ineffective in Windows NT servers. It uses a lot of excess memory and also processing is a lot slower than using ASP or application server products, like CF (Cold Fusion). And there are also security leaks that you need to fix with hotfixes from Microsoft...which are not easy to install.

BTW: Most of your questions are answered in Threads in this forum and also in the Product information page for Links SQL.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Eliot