CMS Watch says 40 percent of WCM vendors are embedding Lucene for search

A new CMS Watch [1] report, The Web CMS Report 2009, has found that many web content management vendors are embedding their own search tools into the CMS, and nearly 40 percent have chosen the open source search tool Lucene [2], a project from the Apache Foundation [3] that has proven to be very popular.

While it's not surprising vendors have chosen an open source tool, the fact the vendors are including search at all is a big departure according to CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne. He says that when they first began covering search a decade ago, most vendors built their own search tools, but over time began embedding a known quantity like Google (which you see on lots of sites). But recent research shows that the new trend has shifted back to embedding their own tool again with Lucene being the clear leader.

This is interesting from a number of perspectives. First of all, it means that the CMS vendors are moving away from Google and toward an open source alternative. Clearly, users have stated they prefer the Google search experience, yet CMS vendors feel the free open source alternative gives them a cheaper alternative, and perhaps more relevant search results when the system is tuned specifically by the vendor for the vendor's products.

Byrne warns that not all Lucene implementations are equal of course and how effective the search tool ultimately is depends on how well the vendor has integrated and tuned Lucene to their product. "Make sure your Web CMS vendor didn't just slap in Lucene--or any other search tool--just because it's free," he says.

For more information:
- see the CMS Watch press release [4]

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