As I mentioned elsewhere, I can code a basic HTML page and that is the extent of my knowledge. I am creating a page- well, I have an idea for a page, but I have to figure out how it will all work first.. Anyway- I want to have a search box on the page that pulls from a directory of articles, based on the search words, and displays the results. I'd also like to have a list of single-word topics that can be clicked on, but I want this to also search the directory for the key word that I've linked it too-- so I don't constantly have to update the single-word topics when new articles are added. What do I need to achieve this? A database of somesort? If so, can you recommend something that is newbiebutfastlearner friendly? TY.

You will need some sort of database and server side technology (PHP, ASP, etc), the technology you can use will depend on your server, or you could use Google, http://www.google.com/faq_freewebsearch.html, but you will have to wait for Google to index the article before it would show up in the search results.

Thanks for the response!
I'll need to get in the right forum before asking any more questions

Google search box is definitely the quickest and most painless way of doing it without coding. Has anyone run into similar services offered by other search engines that work as well?

I use the Google search box on other sites and I like it alot, but I don't think it will work for my current idea and I don't want people to search other pages. I want them to stay right on mine. I haven't found any similar searches, though. And databases blow me a way. If I could just speak my ideas into my computer and have them magically work, I'd be set. As it is, I think I'll be hiring someone soon.

Hey i came across this a while back - it works lovely and it's open source!

http://www.tipue.com/products/tipueJS/

Tipue JS - It's an open source javascript search engine, all you have to do is edit on of the Javascript files, You really don't have to know JS mainly you edit the file with your own information. It's pretty easy to use.