Thing #12 Roll your own search engne

My Online Clothes
http://www.rollyo.com/dashboard.html

Above is the link to my rollyo search engine. It was very easy to make.
Unfortunately, I don't know how to use it. I will explore the site then write more.

...time passes...

Now I've explored. When made my roll viewable to the public, it let me search it. Not straight away though - I had to go in and out a few times. I don't understand why it finally allowed me to search.
Here's the link that can be searched:
http://rollyo.com/search.html?prevsid=323063&q=t-shirt&sid=323063

I noticed two odd things. One is that amazon.com, one of my sites searched, absolutely dominated the results. Few results came up from any other. The second odd thing is that many of my results are from sites not included in my search roll. Perhaps this is because amazon.com outsources their clothing. I will remove them and try again.

...time passes...

I removed amazon.com, no change. Then I noticed on the search page that my rolls were there, in addition to the web and a bunch of others. I went to the edit page, deleted everything except the roll I wanted to search. That worked.

Rollyo was very easy to make, but hard to use. Instructions are nonexistant. I learned:
- the Home screen is where you search your roll
- you need to tell it not to search anything but your roll under Dashboard. If you click on your roll, you get a box that looks like the ones you can search under Explore, except that there is no way to search it.
- Explore links you to other people's searchrolls. I don't understand why they have search boxes but I needed to go to a seperate homepage.
- Tools is about adding rollyo to your toolbar