LIMITING YOUR SEARCHES:

At the most basic level, all you need to do is define in @dirs the
directories containing the files you want searched; WebSearch will
search all the text in all the files in those directories.  You can
refine things with the $avoid variable, defining certain files within
those directories that won’t actually be searched, after all.  And
for most users, this is probably sufficient.

However, in some cases, you may find that you want only *part* of a
particular page’s content to be searched.  This may be the case, for
example, if you have certain “navigation” information on all of your
pages.  There are several ways in which you can limit WebSearch to
looking only at certain portions of a page.

At a “bulk” level, you could set the $METAsOnly configuration
variable, instructing WebSearch to look only at any given page’s
title, META “description” tag and META “keywords” tag.  If you’ve
actually included descriptions and unique keywords lists on each of
your pages, this might even be desirable.  But if you’ve done so,
you’re also a bit unusual.  So this solution clearly isn’t for
everyone.

A more practical solution for most users will be to insert “comment”
tags on your pages, to specify certain portions which should (or
should not) be indexed by WebSearch.

WebSearch supports the “robots” comment tags originally developed
for FDSE (the Fluid Dynamics Search Engine).  These tags allow you
to specify that certain portions of a page’s text should *not* be
indexed.  You simply enclose the text in question with the tags, as
follows:

<!–robots content=”noindex”–>WebSearch won’t read this!<!–/robots–>

You can find out more about the “robots” comment tags and their
capabilities at <http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/help/1048.html>.

WebSearch also supports its own proprietary “websearch” comment tag,
which allows you to specify the specific portion of a page which you
*do* want indexed.  (Note that WebSearch *will* still read a page’s
title, even if the “websearch” tags don’t enclose it!)  Simply enclose
the text you want searched within the tags, as follows:

<!–websearch–>WebSearch will read *only* this!<!–/websearch–>

This documentation assumes that you have at least a general familiarity
with setting up Perl scripts.  If you need more specific assistance,
check with your system administrators, consult the WebScripts FAQs
(frequently-asked questions) file <http://awsd.com/scripts/faqs.shtml>,
or ask on the WebScripts forums <http://awsd.com/scripts/forum/>.