Using Google to search FlyerTalk (merged threads)
 

John,

While the FT internal search function is down, please include in the sticky announcement about it that adding site:www.flyertalk.com as a google search term will restrict the returned results to flyertalk.

This has been mentioned in several fora but I think adding it to the sticky will help more people to find it.

I don't know how frequently Google crawls Flyertalk, but I've been happy using it to find the FT postings I need.

While search is down, please include in sticky how to use Google
 

John,

While the FT internal search function is down, please include in the sticky announcement about it that adding site:www.flyertalk.com as a google search term will restrict the returned results to flyertalk.

This has been mentioned in several fora but I think adding it to the sticky will help more people to find it.

I don't know how frequently Google crawls Flyertalk, but I've been happy using it to find the FT postings I need.

Better yet, you can use the following URL to automatically limit search results to FlyerTalk.com:

http://www.Google.com/search?sitesea...%3CKeywords%3E

BTW, Google seems to be approx. 1 week behind for FT posts...

The Sticky at the top of each forum has been updated and does include the link to Google for search. I even renamed the announcement title so it looked a little different. Thanks for the suggestion and assistance.

Google search is a joke
 

The google search is a joke. Twice recently I have tried to perform a google search. The first one came up empty even though I know that there was a thread which had the search word in the title. The second one came up with lots of obsolete threads (from the archive) but did not return the recent threads.

I've come up empty on the last six or so Google searches even though I know there are multiple threads on the topic.

I guess that's why there is a lot of new competition in the search area. If you'd like to take this up with Google, here's the link page for complaining to them:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/contact/index.html

Hope this helps.

Yup, the Google search alternative is proving to be pretty useless...

Complaining to Google for a patch-up solution which is attempting to replace something that should normally work on this board is not the best approach, IMO. Rather than complain to them, can we please have an update on when the regular search will be up again?

When the search function was up, even if somewhat defective (was it? It didn't appear to be), it appeared to work pretty well--certainly better than the Google alternative. Can't we have that up again until the new search is implemented, even if it does not work at 100%?

Without a reliable search function, the usefulness of FlyerTalk is reduced quite significantly. :td:

Our problem is that we'd never get anything done if we attempted to answer each question on each of the various threads started about this. We did answer your question on another thread about the search function. That answer and update is here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...25#post3909625

We did not think of posting it here because this seemed to be complaint thread about Google.

As well, it seems some have missed various posts about the board that indeed search can be utilized during this period by simply asking a moderator for help. We enabled them for search to help members which is really the purpose for moderators anyway and quite a few members have been able to get help this way.

On the other thread, you'll see comments from some of the more tech inclined members of the board that other Web sites have had problems with search - some disabling it for good and others now charging to reduce the server drain. While i'm not in the league of those members, I am very willing to accept their comments that search problems are not unique to FT and that among the larger boards it has become very expensive and an ongoing challenge. As noted in the other thread, we are introducing tow new servers, one to handle just search and the other to off-load graphic drain of use of smilies and other static graphics of the board itself. Those two servers are running $15K with the install and RAID. But we think if a few of our members will allow us to focus on this solution over the next week or two, everyone will be happy.

And really, we have a lot in common with our thoughts... "[Google] is not the best approach." We never intended it to be, but it seemed better than nothing.

Thanks, Randy, that provided a lot of the information and the update on the search function that I was looking for. Hope you guys are able to make it work! :)

Google search feedback
 

Please post any feedback on the recent search change there, that is detailed at:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/annou...uncementid=165

Thank you,

It defaults to "web", is there any way to make it default to Flyertalk?

Is there anyway to maintain the FlyerTalk Header/Menu bar up top so we can navigate to Home, Forums, Members, Extras, My flyertalk, etc from the search results page?

Is it possible to restrict the search to non-archive pages (or perhaps show these at the bottom)?

Also without any date info (or even sorting by date) it is hard to tell which result is most relevant.

Yes, similar problem here. What I was searching for, it didn't catch at all (and I KNOW there are at least 2 threads from the last couple of years on ths topic). Instead I got something from 2000.