1. General

1.1. What is X-SiteSearch?
1.2. Another search engine?
1.3. Why X-SiteSearch?
1.4. Other search engines on the web also suggest to integrate a search box on my website. Why not use those?
1.5. I can display ads on my website in addition to a search function, and be paid when a visitor clicks on a sponsored link. Why should I use X-SiteSearch?
1.6. I installed a blog or a picture gallery, which already has a search function. Why use X-SiteSearch in this case?
1.7. How does X-SiteSearch work?
1.8. What are the different versions of X-SiteSearch?
1.9. How much does X-SiteSearch cost?

2. Installation

2.1. How can I subscribe to your service?
2.2. I just received the welcome message, but I get an error in my browser when I run a search. What happened?
2.3. Can I change the appearance of the search results page?
2.4. Images on my results page aren't displayed properly. Why?
2.5. The confirmation e-mail tells me that no page was indexed, how is that possible?
2.6. Some pages are missing, why?
2.7. Can I exclude some pages from the index?
2.8. Can I remove some parts of my pages from the index?
2.9. What is website partitioning?
2.10. Can I add my own ads to the results page?
2.11. I have a porn, warez or other illegal or shocking website, can I use X-SiteSearch?
2.12. Can I change the look of the search form?
2.13. Can you guarantee that this service won't be interrupted?
2.14. Does X-SiteSearch work well with frames?
2.15. The pages on my website are dynamically generated (news, customized menus, etc.). Can I use the same elements on my results page?
2.16. Can I use X-SiteSearch with my intranet?

3. Tools

3.1. How do you highlight words in the results?
3.2. What's an RSS feed?
3.3. How can I add an RSS feed to my website?
3.4. What's a dynamic RSS feed on X-SiteSearch?
3.5. What's a sitemap?
3.6. How to create a sitemap on my website?

4. Payment And Invoice

4.1. I represent an incorporated company based in Europe, do I have to pay the VAT?
4.2. I subscribed to the free service should I still pay some VAT?

1. General

1.1. What is X-SiteSearch?

X-SiteSearch is your customized serach engine. You own or manage a website, with X-SiteSearch you can add a form in order for you visitors to search on your website content. All you need is sign up and add a form on your page or pages, we take care of the rest.
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1.2. Another search engine?

We don't index all existing websites, but only yours. If your visitors search for an information on the web, they already use one or more search engines. But if your website is intersting for them, they'd wish to find some information there, not on the whole web. That's where we operate.
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1.3. Why X-SiteSearch?

Our service dates back 1998, it's one of the oldest and most stable of the web. Since then we served more than 25,000 customers, from small personal websites to a federation of websites containing more than 750,000 pages. Our technology has constantly evolved during those years, and we continue to improve it. Our goal is to propose a powerful and complete service, but still easy to use.
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1.4. Other search engines on the web also suggest to integrate a search box on my website. Why not use those?

Those search engines have two main drawbacks:
  • As they are generic, you don't master the moment they visit and index your website. Sometimes a new visit doesn't occur after several weeks, and the search results no longer match your content. Either your visitors won't find what they're looking for, or they'll find something that no longer exists.
  • You are not in full control of the results list layout and can't make it look exactly like the rest of your website. Your visitors will be aware that they're no longer on your website, and you risk that they extend their search to the whole web and leave for good. Our solution can be completely and transparently integrated to your website.
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1.5. I can display ads on my website in addition to a search function, and be paid when a visitor clicks on a sponsored link. Why should I use X-SiteSearch?

Both are compatible! X-SiteSearch only inserts sponsored links in search results. You can add your own ads anywhere else on your website.

In addition, our experience show that sponsored link shown during a search only represent a small fraction of the ad revenue of a website. X-SiteSearch can finance itself using ads only because it has a large number of customers.

You can choose between three options:
  • add a well thought-out and integrated search solution but don't get paid for ads in search results;
  • get paid for ads in search results but with the drawbacks of a standard search engine (see previous question);
  • subscribe for one of our paying solutions, which allow you to display your own ads in search results as well (see the comparison of our services).
Each website has its own requirements, you are free to choose the solution that suits you best.
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1.6. I installed a blog or a picture gallery, which already has a search function. Why use X-SiteSearch in this case?

The supplied search function is stricly limited to the content of the product you've installed. If that's the only product you have, you don't really need X-SiteSearch. But if you have one or more static pages (as a presentation page, some contact or links page), or if you installed at least two different products, the search won't be complete. X-SiteSearch automatically indexes the fuull content of your website, as it "sees" exactly the same content as your visitors. These will be able to retrieve the information they're looking for, whereever it is.
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1.7. How does X-SiteSearch work?

X-SiteSearch works in two steps:
  1. First, the index engine crawls your website and analyzes its pages. It extracts links that will allow it to find other pages in your website, and the content is split in words which are stored in the index.
  2. When the index is ready, and when one or more search words are sent by submitting them from the search form, the search engine finds those words in the index and the pages that contain them. The pages are then displayed in a customized results page.
It's important to update your search engine (i.e. to reindex it) when the content of your website has changed.
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1.8. What are the different versions of X-SiteSearch?

All version of the service allow you to index your content and customize the look of your results page. The basic version is free: you can index up to 1,500 web pages, and ads are displayed along with the search results. The personal version is designed for small websites: it doesn't include ads but is limited to 100 pages. The pro version lifts those constraints, and the page limit is set to 5,000. If you have larger or more complex requirements, our advanced version might be for you: please contact us.
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1.9. How much does X-SiteSearch cost?

The basic service is completely free. The detailed pricing of the other services is available here
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2. Installation

2.1. How can I subscribe to your service?

On the home page or on the top of this page you will find a "Sign up" link: click on it, fill in the form and confirm. You'll receive a first welcome email message. The next step is to sign in: the appearance page in your account will help you create a search form, which you can include on your website. A second message will be sent as soon as the indexing of your web site is complete: your search engine is then ready.
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2.2. I just received the welcome message, but I get an error in my browser when I run a search. What happened?

The most probable cause is that the indexing of your website isn't complete yet. Please wait for the second email message confirming that the indexing is complete: the search will then be immediately available.
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2.3. Can I change the appearance of the search results page?

You can update almost all parameters of your page, as the background, the header, or the appereance of the search results themselves. In order to do this, create an HTML page where you insert the following code at the place where to show the search results:
<!--results-->
In the member's section on our website, in the appearance menu, click on "Set up a page template" and follow the instruction to send your HTML page to the server.

Caution: the code above is an actual html comment; if you don't enter it correctly, our system will reject your page. Please contact us if you need assistance.
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2.4. Images on my results page aren't displayed properly. Why?

Make sure that you give the full image urls in your html code, e.g.: "http://www.mywebsite.com/images/pic.jpg" and not "/images/pic.jpg". Alternatively, add the following tag in the <head> section of your results page:
<base href="http://www.mywebsite.com/">
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2.5. The confirmation e-mail tells me that no page was indexed, how is that possible?

The are several possible causes, the most frequent being:
  • Your website wasn't available during the indexing. Make sure your server is alive and restart the indexing.
  • You use a redirection in order to hide the actual address of your website, e.g.: http://www.mywebsite.com/ to http://mywebsite.webhostingcompany.com/. You should use the actual address of your website in X-SiteSearch.
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2.6. Some pages are missing, why?

First, try to update your index. If the pages are still missing, X-SiteSearch doesn't know that they exist for some reason. This mostly happens with Javascript: in menus, links or other navigation methods. You can add the address of some or all the missing pages in the list of pages to index, in order for the indexing engine to find them (see the explanation here).
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2.7. Can I exclude some pages from the index?

There are several ways to exclude pages:
  • You can create a robots.txt in the top-level of your website. Please see this website for a complete explanation. The User-Agent of your crawler is: x-sitesearch.
  • You can also update the pages you don't want to index my adding the following tag into the <head> section of those pages:
    <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
    Note that this will also exclude those pages from other search engines.
  • The above methods might be difficult to set up on some websites, which is why we also offer the possiblility to manually exclude some pages in the member's pages: in the "Engine" section, click on "Exclusion of pages".
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2.8. Can I remove some parts of my pages from the index?

It's possible to control the indexing process and exclude some parts such as the header, menu, or footer from the index. Place the following HTML comments around the sections to skip:
<!-- xs:stop -->
and
<!-- xs:start -->
in that order: the first comment stops the indexing process, the second one restarts it.
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2.9. What is website partitioning?

Website partitioning, available in the professional version, consists in creating logical parts in your website(s), for instance:
  • If your website has several themes, you can also index them separately.
  • If you manage an account for several websites, you can create a partition for each website, or group them depending on their theme.
  • If you manage a blog, a picture gallery, etc. you can separate them in the index.
    • The advantage is then to exploit this partitioning in our other tools: the search engine of course, where you can have the users select the partitions they wish to search on using checkboxes, or choose what to search for them. RSS feeds and sitemaps can also be generated globally or per partition.
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2.10. Can I add my own ads to the results page?

With our free service, our advertisers ask for the exclusivity on pages where they are present. With other paying services, you are free to add your own ads.
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2.11. I have a porn, warez or other illegal or shocking website, can I use X-SiteSearch?

We don't allow illegal websites in their country of origin or in Belgium in X-SiteSearch. Although it never happened, we reserve the right to delete whatever website from our service without warning.

Some legal websites but with content that can be considered shocking, in particular erotic or porn sites, can use X-SiteSearch with a paying service or by asking us first, in order for us to check with our advertisers. Please contact us to make sure we can accept your website.
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2.12. Can I change the look of the search form?

Of course! You can change it in any way you like, but please make sure it still works. In particular, don't change the field names and don't remove "hidden inputs".
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2.13. Can you guarantee that this service won't be interrupted?

We do our best to keep our servers up and running 24 hours a day. If a maintenance action is planned, we will warn our customers in advance and minimize the downtime. Our service has started back in 1998 and has continued working ever since, which makes it one of the oldest and most sustainable of the web.
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2.14. Does X-SiteSearch work well with frames?

Yes, X-SiteSearch works well with frames, and indexes them as well as long as they belong to your website. If you use a redirection service, please see above.
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2.15. The pages on my website are dynamically generated (news, customized menus, etc.). Can I use the same elements on my results page?

You can keep the result pages on your website instead of the one hosted on X-SiteSearch, which lets you use the same elements as on other pages of your website. In this case, a small script is required on your server, please contact for more details.
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2.16. Can I use X-SiteSearch with my intranet?

It's possible if you can install a small script on your intranet server. Please contact for more information.
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3. Tools

3.1. How do you highlight words in the results?

We can highlight words in two places:
  • In the result list, found words are displayed in bold by default (you can change this using CSS).
  • In the actual page, we propose a navigation help for your visitors: words are shown with different colors, and they can navigate from word to word in order for them to quickly spot the part that's interesting to them. You can activate this function in the result page configuration.
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3.2. What's an RSS feed?

An RSS feed lists the latest news of a website or a blog, in a format easily processed by a computer program. Using an RSS feed, a visitor can be kept informed even without navigating the website (which he rarely does): it's a loyalto tool. With an RSS feed, visitors can have an overview of the subjects that matter to them. Many applications, including on mobile, use RSS feeds, and some portals gather them for their members. Browsers also use them, sometimes called "dynamic bookmarks".
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3.3. How can I add an RSS feed to my website?

To install an RSS feed, you have to add a link in one or several pages of your website. There are at least two ways to do this, which can be set up concurrently:
  • The simplest way is to create a link to to address of the feed, usually with an orange icon (search the web to find some examples).
  • You can also add the following tag to the <head> section of your page:
    <link href="RSS feed address" rel="alternate"
    type="application/rss+xml" title="Latest News">
    (Replace the "RSS feed address" above with the actual address). This kind of link is automatically recognized by application and browsers.
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3.4. What's a dynamic RSS feed on X-SiteSearch?

A unique feature of X-SiteSearch is to associate the same RSS feed feature with a search criteria defined by your visitors. They can follow the news regarding a specific and customized topic. Each time your website is indexed, the dynamic RSS feeds will automatically take account of the changes.

This dynamic RSS feed can be added to the search result page by activating the corresponding option.
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3.5. What's a sitemap?

A sitemap is a simple web page which lists the structure of your website. You can compare it with a Table Of Contents: it's a useful navigation help for you visitors. Instead of having to maintain it yourself, X-SiteSearch offers to take charge: it will be automatically refreshed every time your web site is indexed.
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3.6. How to create a sitemap on my website?

It's easy: create a link on your website to the address given in our member's pages. The sitemap can be customized and adapted to your website layout, the same way as for the result pages in order to be transparently integrated to your website.
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4. Payment And Invoice

4.1. I represent an incorporated company based in Europe, do I have to pay the VAT?

If your company is VAT registered in its country of origin, our service will be invoiced without VAT. If need be, please sort out your situation with your tax administration. We require your full coordinates as well as your VAT number if applicable. For more detail, please ask your tax accountant, or .
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4.2. I subscribed to the free service should I still pay some VAT?

No, this service is free, there's no tax to be paid. Only the paying services are concerned.
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