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 An interview with Jim Douglas, co-creator of FreeFind.com.  Since it launched in 1997, FreeFind has provided Web site owners with a quick and easy way to add a powerful search engine to their own pages. FreeFind is one of those rare free Web services that is so reliable and efficient that it's hard to believe that this is a free service. While there are a number of other "set-up-a-search-engine" type free services out there, FreeFind's ease of use, speed and configurability places it in the top division of the Web's free services. In this interview, TheFreeSite.com talks to FreeFind co-founder and coding guru, Jim Douglas. Question: For our visitors who are not familiar with FreeFind, please tell us: What is FreeFind and who are the people behind it? Answer: FreeFind is a very popular way for webmasters to improve their sites. It's a site search and navigation engine, and is used to easily add a "search this site" feature to just about any web site or combinations of sites. Before FreeFind, only high-dollar sites could afford to implement this feature, but now anyone can add searching capabilities to their web site quickly and easily, for free. Also, FreeFind can automatically generate a site map for your site - another feature popular with visitors. FreeFind was founded by myself, Jim Douglas, and my brother Alan Douglas. We do everything from writing the search engine software to taking the trash out. Q: What type of Net user would benefit from using FreeFind? Who is your target audience? A: Frankly, everyone benefits (this sounds extreme, I know!). Webmasters benefit because FreeFind allows them to easily add a "search-this-site" feature to their web site. This is a feature that their visitors will definitely appreciate! In addition, webmasters can also use the reports FreeFind generates to get a better idea of what their visitors are truly looking for and whether their expectations are being met. Obviously, visitors to a FreeFind-enabled site benefit as well, since they get to easily search the site to find what they're looking for. Q: If someone runs a Web site, they could buy a script and set up their own search engine, couldn't they? Why use FreeFind's service? A: FreeFind is the fastest and easiest way to add search capabilities to a web site. Here's a quick comparison of what you have to do with FreeFind vs. a script: With FreeFind you sign-up, we e-mail you the HTML to paste into your page, you tell our system how often you would like to have your site indexed and that's it. You're ready to go. And it's free. On the other hand, if you want to try to use a script you're in for days of hassle. First you'll need to learn about CGIs and how they work or hire someone to do it for you. Next you'll need CGI access to your server -- something many hosting services do not allow. Then find or purchase the script you want, download it, compile it, configure it, and then, chances are, it won't work right the first time. So you'll need to debug it (hope your handy with C or Perl!). Oh, then you'll need to maintain and update it from time to time... In addition our service does things that search scripts just don't do, like automatically create a "site map" for your site. Site maps are another popular way for your visitors to find what they're looking for. A site map shows the top-level organization of your site so visitors know - at a glance - where to find the section they're interested in. Q: What is your role with FreeFind? Briefly describe a typical day for you on the job. A: As I mentioned before, we're a very small company so we basically do it all. In the morning, we check our customer support email. Most web companies, regardless of size, simply don't do this... as you may have figured out by now! But we feel that it's an important part of ensuring the quality of our service - for everyone, not just those who write. Sometimes, due to the volume of email we get, we can't respond immediately, but we do eventually. Next there's a lot of basic business things to do. Paperwork. This isn't the most enjoyable stuff in the world, but we realize the importance of ensuring our company has a solid business foundation. Then we try to "spread the word" about FreeFind - letting webmasters know that it's available, and try to swing some win-win deals with the big players on the web. Despite the top-quality and usefulness of our service, it can be surprisingly difficult. This is due to the large amount of "noise" out there and that other companies are, well, just as busy as we are. Another common thing we do is work on technical improvements. This includes adding/improving features and making sure that performance is solid. Unfortunately we don't have enough time to add all the features we'd like, so we have to concentrate on just the features that we feel will be most popular with our users. Generally, that's how we spend our day. At the end of the day, we take out the trash. Q: When did FreeFind launch? What gave you the idea for this project in the first place? A: In the fall of 1997 we were running a software site, offering two Java software packages that we had developed. The software was really cool and did some neat tricks with Java. It was offered for sale on the internet using e-commerce software that we had also written. Thousands of our free trial editions were downloaded, but people didn't really want to pay for it -- everyone wanted it for free. We basically didn't make a cent, but we learned something: the Internet price is "free". By the winter of '97 we had a new concept: FreeFind, a remotely hosted site search engine. We scoured the Internet and found that none existed. We got to work and in the Summer of '98 we had our first server on-line running out of my house. Now we're running four servers our of our offices in downtown Santa Cruz, and we'll be adding six more this next month! (Sept 99). Q: Tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What is your background? Before FreeFind launched, what did you do for a living? A: My brother and I grew up in Austin Texas, but we've lived in Santa Cruz California, twenty minutes south of Silicon Valley, for more than ten years. Before FreeFind launched, and indeed for several months thereafter, we worked as independent consultants for major technology companies like Apple, Borland, Symantec and the like. Over the years we've developed software using over a dozen different computer languages and have always loved to work with the latest technology. Q: When did you first discover the world of cyberspace? When did you buy your first computer and what type of machine was it? A: First we had some limited access to a Data General Nova 800 system which we would program in binary through a set of front panel switches. Then my high school got access to the University of Texas' dual CDC 6600/6400 System. In the late seventies and early eighties microprocessor based systems began to appear. I'm not sure which one we bought first but we had an S-100 Z-80 CPM system, a TRS-80 Model 1, and an Apple (not a Mac!). Later, when they came out, we got IBM PCs then the Apple Macintosh. Q: What type of computer do you run these days? What is your programming language of choice and why? A: We are using networks of Intel based systems these days, both Pentiums and Celerons. Mostly because these have the best price-performance ratio. As for programming languages -- it depends on the task. C is best for some tasks, C++, Java or Assembly language for others. Q: How does FreeFind make money? Has the project been a financial success? A: While I can't go into the specifics I can say that we are happy with both our revenues and our number of unique users, and the growth rate of both of these key figures. Q: What is your main challenge in running FreeFind? What's the most difficult part of running a service like this? A: That's a hard question because there are so many challenges and difficulties, from managing our most limited resource: our own time, to keeping ahead of our growth rate or getting the word out to Webmasters about FreeFind.com without spending gobs of money. Q: Since you're in the search engine business, we thought we'd ask: what is your own favorite search engine from among the big portals like Infoseek and Lycos, and why? What is your least favorite search engine and why? A: It changes from time to time but I tend to use Google and Alta Vista when I want a web search and Yahoo if I want to look in a directory. If you're looking for a popular, high traffic site, Google has a good chance of ranking it highly in its listings. Alta Vista has an extensive database of pages and boolean searching, which, wile not friendly enough for most people, is second nature to programmers. I don't really have a least favorite... I try them all from time to time. Q: We've read lately that the Net is expanding too quickly for any one search engine to keep pace. What are your thought on this? Is it possible this problem will ever been solved or is it just going to get worse? A: There are two different cases here, one for site search engines, like FreeFind, and another for Web search engines like Alta Vista. FreeFind can theoretically expand to match any load because our revenues rise in proportion to the number of sites we have indexed. It's just a matter of capital. A web search engine, such as Alta Vista, is not in the same position. Their revenue is not based on how many sites they have indexed (unless they can use that fact to bring more searchers to their site). While they may be able to expand their database in proportion to Internet growth, this would be quite costly and would not result in much increased traffic to their search engine. They already return too many results to page through, so who cares if your search matches 1,385,000 pages or 1,578,000 pages? While many of these giant search engines have billions to burn, I think they choose to spend it on buying other companies rather than pursuing total indexing. Q: Where do you see this project going? What do you envision for FreeFind, say, five years down the road? Of course we intend to keep our current customer base happy and solidify our position in the site search engine business, but beyond that we've got lots of great ideas for the future. Unfortunately, because the Internet is possibly the most competitive market in history, I can't really make any early announcements of any new services we might roll out, but you'll be the first to know! Get your own free, custom, remotely-hosted search engine from FreeFind at their Web site. Check out our other Freebie Features:
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