These questions are about Sphider, a php search engine that can be found here: http://www.cs.ioc.ee/~ando/sphider/index.php

Server type: Windows 2003, latest PHP and mySQL and Apache 2.2

Here are the questions:

I was able to install the pdftotext converter, but when i looked at the doctotext converter, the site said it did not work with windows. I was wondering if there was such a converter and also a ppt converter?

Also, i have links on my pages that use javascript, so they aren't read by the spiders. Is there a way to embed hidden links so that these pages are indexed?

Finally, some of my PDF documents are fewer than 10 words, so they are excluded. Is there a way to change this so that no matter how many words, the document is indexed?

Thanks for your help.

Also, i have links on my pages that use javascript, so they aren't read by the spiders. Is there a way to embed hidden links so that these pages are indexed?

I have never used sphider so I can't help you there.. but as far as javascript links. My first piece of advice would be to not use them (but I am sure that is just anoying and you don't care what I think lol)...

but make an HTML link to a sitemap at the bottom of every page, and then have the sitemap be nothing but HTML links. Then spiders will be able to navigate your site properly.

This may be a dumb question...

I use the javascript links for links that i want opened as pop-ups with a defined size. Is there a way to do that without javascript that would be friendly to spiders?

Not really, however if done properly users with javascript (which includes spiders) should still be able to use the links. It just won't open the page in a new window, nor with a set size.

I did like you said and created a sitemap.... so that solved the one problem, thanks.

Here's another question, related to Sphider, so not sure if you can help.

I installed a pdftotext converter... but when i re-index my site the files (PDFs) are not spidered. Before i installed the converter, they at least were found when indexing and just labeled (Not text). Now, there isn't even sign of them on the log.

Any ideas?