Forum search that works!.... Really!

[misterg]

After being fed up with Google not being able to find posts that I *know* exist, I went back to my old favourite, Altavista, and IT WORKS. It pulls up posts where Google draws a blank.

I used the Altavista Advanced Search and set "Location" to "By URL" and entered www.ybw.com/forums.

If it works for others, too, then perhaps Dan the Man can change the forum 'Search' button to this page (maybe with the domain pre-set hint, hint /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif)

Andy

 

[pvb]

AltaVista still won't find Lounge posts. Google works for me.

 

[misterg]

[ QUOTE ]
AltaVista still won't find Lounge posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I got fed up with Google, because it was returning very few / no results YMMV.

Andy

 

[PlanB]

I can't work with the Google version either - it doesn't always bring up things I KNOW are there somewhere. There's no easily visible date or poster, either.

 

[misterg]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't work with the Google version either - it doesn't always bring up things I KNOW are there somewhere...

[/ QUOTE ]

If you feel the inclination, try the Altavista search - it brought up loads of posts for a couple of searches that I did where Google returned zero. (One of the searches was for "onion soup" /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif)

I would be interested to hear how you get on.

Andy

 

[danfoley]

Hmm, this is strange because whenever I test the search it seems to work reasonably well. For example, on page 10 of sctuttlebutt is 'clyde scuttlebutt get together', and searching for 'clyde scuttlebutt' brings it up top. The search won't look in the lounge at the moment but we're trying to get that working, although the forum google search is targeted only at the forums in the same way you've targeted it with the AV search.

Cheers,
Dan

 

[misterg]

[ QUOTE ]
searching for 'clyde scuttlebutt' brings it up top.

[/ QUOTE ]

Google gives 238 hits for this phrase, Altavista 27,700 (!). If you search for the exact phrase, it comes out at the top in Altavista, too (18 hits in total, cf 23 on Google /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif).

The main thing is that Altavista has found the posts that *I knew* were there, where Google just didn't. At least it's another weapon in the armoury (I've no connection with either Altavista or Google, btw.)

How do you get on with "onion soup" ? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Andy

 

[bilbobaggins]

AltaVista found 171 results for

and

over 1,650,000 results for

That's a result....!

QED




/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif