The Zoom Search Engine is a free package that allows web developers to add an industrial-strength custom search to their website in a matter of minutes. It is an extremely easy-to-use application that requires no complicated server-side set-up procedures. It can also be used to create search engines for intranets, CDs and DVDs as well.

Zoom is capable of serving up to 300 queries a minute and it can index and search 1000’s of web site domains in a single index. Developers who choose to upgrade to the Enterprise Edition will be able to index up to 1 million pages.

Features include: wildcard and exact phrase searching; “Google-like” context search results; Highlighted found words; spelling & synonym suggestions; exclusion/negative searches; display images/thumbnails in search results; prioritize recommended links for keywords/phrases; A9 and OpenSearch compatible XML/RSS output (CGI only); Sitemap generation (Yahoo™ and Google™ compatible); international language support; statistical graphs & reports.

Zoom allows searches into DOC, PDF, PPT, XLS, RTF and WPD files and is capable of indexing SWF and FlashPaper files. In addition, Zoom now supports indexing/searching of the meta-data in MP3 and various image file formats. See the Zoom website for a complete list of supported file formats.

The Zoom Search Engine will index files in either spider or offline mode. Indexing options include incremental index, simultaneous broken link detection, content filtering, flexible scanning and skipping options.

Zoom is available in Free (max. 50 pages), Standard $US49 (max. 100 pages), Professional $US99 (max. 200,000 pages) and Enterprise $US299 (max. 1 million pages) Editions. It supports PHP, ASP, Javascript and CGI platforms and can also create .NET search pages.