searchable database based web application design - database

I am new to web application development. I want to develop an java/mysql/tomcat web application. I want to make the application so that the data inside the database can be searchable by any search engine. How do I implement that?

Search engines don't read your database. They read the web pages. Make it so that all the information that you want searchable is accessible by following non-AJAX links from the outside. If you hide the information behind a login form, or even just a search form, the search engines won't be able to access the information.

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Can I set up a web form that will populate an opportunity in my salesforce

I have a site I sent my clients to who want to move forward with our order process and I want the information they submit to automatically fill in the form under the opportunity. I was wondering how this was possible. I know you can set up a web to lead form but I dont see this option for what I want to do.
There is no native Opportunity feature equivalent for Web-to-lead or Web-to-Case. You do have a lot of options though (ordered from simplest to most complex).
Use an app on the AppExchange that provide web-to-x functionality.
Use a pre-built connector for popular CMS apps to integrate with Salesforce.
Create a Visualforce Page hosted on Force.com sites and then embed that on your website
Create an Apex Web Service hosted on Force.com sites that can be posted to by your form
Write code on your web platform to post to the Salesforce API.

Salesforce: is it possible to develop a web application on top of Salesforce

Let me start with a bit of background: I'm helping a non-profit organization that would like to have a browser-based application that is backed by Salesforce, but has very specific requirements.
I see Salesforce has a REST API that we can call, so we can develop a standalone application to serve the web pages they want and use the REST API to call Salesforce when needed.
I'm wondering if there is a way to host a web application directly on Salesforce; this way we don't have to have a separate application server. Any recommendations or pointers to documentation/open source products is greatly appreciated.
Yes, you can create services that will allow your app to hit Salesforce
Depending on the type of application, yes you can host it on salesforce using the Salesforce Sites feature, also you can develop and host your app on Heroku which is owned by salesforce and can sync data to and from salesforce using Heroku Connect, or you can build and host it on another service like AWS and connect via the REST API. You just need to investigate and choose the option that best fits your use-case. One thing to be aware of is that there are API limits (the number of calls you can make to salesforce in a rolling 24hr period). Depending the the needs of the app be sure to see if those limits will be an issue. Because if the app makes constant calls to salesforce that could be an issue. But there are things you can do to get around that, like caching.
Yes, both Force.com Sites and Site.com features allow you to host webpages on the Force.com Platform. The markup is stored in Visualforce Pages and can use Apex to access records in the Database. I have migrated multiple websites (including our company's www.mkpartners.com) to Force.com using Force.com Sites.
One thing to keep in mind is that you are limited to 500,000 views per month and the rendering of a page with images that are also stored on the platform will incur a single view for the page and a single view for each image. If you already have a very popular website, I wouldn't migrate. If you're a small business or nonprofit, then it should be fine.
Another thing to keep in mind is that dynamic functionality based on records in the database will not work during maintenance windows. There is the ability to upload a static version of your website to be rendered during these windows though.

Is it possible to display business catalyst analytics on your front end?

I'm just wondering if there is a module tag in Business Catalyst which will enable me to display the visitor count and page views automatically on a webpage.
No, there is not a module that will allow you to view that data on the frontend of a site.
You could run a report and then upload that PDF to a page if you are looking to allow certain users access to visitor data without allowing backend access.
The other option would be to find an analytics provider that has an API or some method of allowing you to display this data on the frontend of your site.

Google Cloud Datastore and reports/administration

I'm quite new to Google App Engine and it's cloud Datastore which is used for storing the backend's data by default. As far as I realized you can only view it's content within the developer console and you can create or edit entities there.
But is there any external tool from which you can connect to your datastore to create reports or administer the data? What is your experience?
In fact yes it's true you can only see data's from the admin console.
If you wish to see your data's in Google Drive Table and make a report you can, but for that you need to create a connector to your sheet (I already made one). It's exactly the same if you need update or import data's to your datastore.
I use this Technic to upload or refresh products on my e-shop GAE app.
In general if I need to see a report, I design a specific web page for that and I protect theme via a login / password. To see a well formatted report you can use jquery library or use Google Charts

Can Google be used for site search on a database backed website?

I'm developing a web site with Google App Engine, and I want to have a search feature for user submitted stuff. Since this project is just a toy and I don't control the server, I'd like to just use Google to handle search. However, since the content is stored in the database, I don't think Google can discover the dynamic urls. Unless maybe I create a page that links the last N submissions and hope it gets crawled frequently. Thoughts?
Absolutely. As long as the database is exposed in a web page which can be crawled, Google will crawl it (unless told not to).
The best way to make it all accessible is decent navigation between pages. However, lacking that, a site map page linked from the home page should suffice.
This is an excellent candidate for a sitemap.
You can generate the XML any way you want, and give it to Google. The best part is, it is a "private" XML file; no need to have ugly listings of dynamic URLs for users to see.

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