Excluding areas:

Before you start using the search engine, you may want to remove a few directories or files from the search area. This is done by adding those areas to a .nosearch file, one directory (or file) per line, at the root level of the website. The most popular exclusion seems to be message boards. If you had the message area located at http://www.yoursite.com/boards, your .nosearch file would contain
/boards
Keep in mind the database is rebuilt nightly at 5:00 AM Eastern time, so your exclusions will not have an immediate effect.

A search engine is pretty useless without a way to access it. As mentioned on the previous page, the bare minimum needed for the form is:
<FORM ACTION="cgi-bin/site-search"> <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=query> <INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Search"> </FORM>
That searches for pages matching all of the terms entered and returns them using the default results template. If you have your own results page, you will want to add this line:
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME=template VALUE="/filename">
with filename being the name of the template file. That is usually adequate for a sidebar item. If you have an actual search page, you may also want to allow searches for any word, boolean tags, and/or file names. You can add this pop-up menu to allow those options:
<SELECT NAME=style> <OPTION>All Words</OPTION> <OPTION>Any Word</OPTION> <OPTION>Boolean</OPTION> <OPTION>File Name</OPTION> </SELECT>

A results template is standard HTML, with additional tags to direct the search system.

-- head	This marks the pre-results portion of the page. It should be the first line of the file, but it is optional.
-- loop	This portion is repeated for every result that is printed. It is required.
-- foot	This marks the end of the loop portion and the start of the post-results portion of the HTML. It is required.


These tags are available in the head and foot portions:

%hits%	The total number of hits displayed.
%query%	The key words the user searched for.


These tags are available in the loop portion:

%count%	The current hit number (1, 2, 3, ...)
%hits%	The total number of hits displayed.
%mtime%	When the file was last updated.
%rank%	Estimated usefullness of the hit.
%size%	Size of the file.
%title%	The document title, if any.
%url%	URL of the hit.

Once you have the template made, add this line to any search forms on your site:

<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME=template VALUE="/filename">

where filename is the name of the template file.

You may find it easier to customize the default template, rather than create a new template from scratch.