This is so freaking awesome. I've had this problem on nearly every website and blog I've created. Also at both of my startups (Scribd and Parse -- note: Parse uses Swiftype on our documentation pages -- try it out).
I've tried google site search (which sucked and wouldn't index all the Scribd pages for example, and it wasn't good enough for the parse documentation) and I've also used lucene and sphinx (pain to set up and the marketing folks always complained about search results, speed, ordering, relevance, etc, and analytics were a pain). Swiftype is the best option by far. I love this company -- really excited they finally have launched and I can talk about them.
Think about all the sites that use google custom site search just because that's the only decent option for them up until today. Huge market here. Congrats Swiftype.
When searching via Chrome, I kept getting a blank content area with no search results. I did some digging (thinking that the issue might be that I reject 3rd party cookies) and I found the problem:
https://swiftype.com/embed.js wasn't loading. I went to view this script in my browser and got an error which was preventing the script from executing: "The identity of this website has not been verified. Server's certificate is not trusted." I clicked "proceed" to view the script in the browser, and when I went back to the search page, it worked as intended.
On a friend's mac, opening a new page in the browser brings up the Apple homepage, and for some reason my muscle memory is such that instead of the browser's search toolbar, on that computer I sometimes click the Apple.com search field, which has a really nice expanding style effect as it gets your focus. Then I always laugh because, haha, like anyone can find anything on Apple's site.
I don't think I would try it if I wanted to get to the online store (I would Google "apple.com store") if they removed the "store" tab to make room for something else...
That is just how low my expectation of in-site search is. The status quo is abysmal!
So, I agree there is quite a bit of room for improvement here... Just remember my laughter in the 0.2 to 0.5 seconds or however long it takes for the apple.com search field to expand... :)
I've tried google site search (which sucked and wouldn't index all the Scribd pages for example, and it wasn't good enough for the parse documentation) and I've also used lucene and sphinx (pain to set up and the marketing folks always complained about search results, speed, ordering, relevance, etc, and analytics were a pain). Swiftype is the best option by far. I love this company -- really excited they finally have launched and I can talk about them.
Think about all the sites that use google custom site search just because that's the only decent option for them up until today. Huge market here. Congrats Swiftype.