How to improve webmasterworld searching

Or am I doing something awfully wrong?

[dirkz]

Hi all,
I have the impression that I lack some of the "built-in" searching capabilities.

I was searching for the following thread, had lost the URL:
http:/smilestopper/www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/6425.htm

and I knew that http:/smilestopper/surfsafely.com occurred in it. Searching for exactly this term failed. I had to go to google and tried a site-search, and got it.

Does the internal search omit anchors? How could I possibly have found it without using google?

What I also miss is a user-centric search, e.g. searching for all messages GoogleGuy posted :)
Any plans to implement this? Or can one do it already?

[edited by: Marcia at 2:19 am (utc) on Aug. 27, 2003]

[takagi]

Unfortunately I have to agree, the site search is not so good.

What I also miss is a user-centric search, e.g. searching for all messages GoogleGuy posted

Try the link in message 17 of this thread [webmasterworld.com]. That way you can search on pages on which GoogleGuy also posted a message.

[dirkz]

Thank you Takagi,
that's valuable information. Never thought of searching for his joining date :))

[adamas]

Also, try using Google to search WW limiting the search to WW with site:www.webmasterworld.com .

[thewebboy]

I agree, site search is horrible.

[skipfactor]

I'd donate an additional $50 for a new, decent search here; anybody want to match me? Then again, perhaps management doesn't want things to be so easy to find. ;)

[amznVibe]

heh, I already have an improved site search, its called the Google toolbar "search site" feature (*ducks*)

[Rumbas]

Search a specific forum by adding [forumX] to your query. Searching for ODP in the ATW forum would look like this [searchengineworld.com]

Clever, yes? ;)

[BlobFisk]

Using Google, you can also search in a particular Forum:

site:www.webmasterworld.com inurl:/forumXX/ search terms

It won't work for very recent threads - but for everything else it takes a lot of the pressure of the servers here!

[amznVibe]

I was thinking if Brett could use the GoogleAPI as an alternative search, we could plugin our own license keys for our own searching through the control panel (since each license is only allowed 1000 searches per day our own keys would be needed)

[dirkz]

Maybe we could provide a comfortable interface for searching WW which uses google in the background? amznVibe, your post had the same direction. Any ideas?

You could google's "site" feature for refining it even to certain forums, or provide a drop-down box with famous posters, like GoogleGuy, which then just links to google.
Is it legal to just redirect to google after having setup a query string?

I mean just building a frontend with some input controls, which just sends you to google with a query string built on the fly according to your input.

More input please, anything goes.