Why did we build our own search engine in Exact Synergy Enterprise?

In Exact Synergy Enterprise we have made major changes to the search logic. Sometimes I got questions from people why we did not implement Google or other available engines. I think this is a valid question. In my previous blog: Why is Enterprise search more complex than we search? I explained the difference between Enterprise search and web search.

In this blog I will explain the main reasons for our own developed search engine:

1. Exact Search engine is integrated in the software. No additional deployments steps are necessary to use the engine.
2. No additional configuration is not needed. Index process is configured out of the box. Only one background job to schedule the indexing process.
3. No additional hardware is needed to use the search engine.
4. Access control of content is integrated in the Exact Search engine.
5. Development costs versus license fee of external search technology.
6. Training of support and consultancy.

Can it happen that we will use an external search engine in the future? Yes, there will be a moment that we will make use of external search technology. If you ask when, I do not know at this moment. We continually follow available products. The quality of the result set is not the only factor for a decision. We will take the mentioned reasons into account.

If you know search engines who has a good answer on the mentioned reasons feel free to contact me.