Adding google search to site?

relic245

I was just about to make a post but thought that my question has probably been asked before so decided to search. 

I'm sure it's not news but the search doesn't work very well to do this. I get that it's a limitation of the forum software. 

Is it possible to add google search somewhere on the site. My understanding is that it's a few lines of code to add a search box and then you can tell it to only index this site. 

As an ex software developer I get that it's possibly not that easy to add something external to the site without breaking it. Just wondered if it's been thought of and if it's a possiblility. 

Meanwhile I'm off to ask a question that I'm sure has been asked before. 

Roland

I’ve stickied it as https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/50034/using-google-to-search-thefretboard

rze99

Just use google and name the site explicitly also use the filters for date of content. 

The site search is so bad it is not usable. 

webrthomson

just preface your query in google with the site like this:

site:www.thefretboard.co.uk <Search terms here>

So to find Disaster area in Google you would do:

site:www.thefretboard.co.uk disaster area

thecolourbox

I mentioned this a while back in a thread moaning about the search but as nobody said anything I assumed it couldn't be done. I find the Google search thing a complete faff to have to write out the whole web address every time I want to search for something so I just ask my questions without checking if they've been asked before that makes me a bad person, I know, but hey ho

monquixote

When people are moaning about the search being unusable I can only assume they haven't worked out how to use it properly.

Use the advanced search and set the criteria properly.

I always find what I'm looking for.

TTony

Maybe some guidance might help people "set the criteria properly" @monquixote - similar to the guidance notes that were prepared for embedding images (etc)?

I'll freely admit that I've never managed to get it to work effectively.  Rather than have a few hundred/thousand people fiddle about with it individually, wouldn't it be more efficient to post some "how to" guidance?

[PS]
Functionality aside, the UI isn't really intuitive, so a bit of a re-design of that would probably help quite a bit too.

monquixote

It's unintuitive and the default search options are unhelpful.

Both a guide and a couple of layout tweaks would doubtless help a great deal.

fastonebaz

Search via mobile doesn't allow sort by date which is most useful. 

monquixote

fastonebaz said:

Search via mobile doesn't allow sort by date which is most useful. 

Indeed that could do with fixing.

Jonathangus

fastonebaz said:

Search via mobile doesn't allow sort by date which is most useful. 

If you turn your phone sideways, a 'More Options' button reveals itself.

EDIT: which doesn't allow sorting, but you can select last week/month/year, etc.

TTony

monquixote said:

It's unintuitive and the default search options are unhelpful.

Both a guide and a couple of layout tweaks would doubtless help a great deal.

@monquixote - if you prep some "how to" notes, I'll happily read through and trial them from an idiot user perspective.  

digitalscream

It's been on the list for....well, forever.

The advanced search is actually way more capable than Google for searching this site, because it has access to things like categories and dates. The only thing that doesn't seem to work well (and I don't fully understand why) is the username search in the option - it works perfectly well in the search field using advanced syntax.

Here are a couple of useful examples...

Search for all posts by me mentioning the Helix

Search for all ads for a Helix in the classifieds, most recent first

Note that to use the advanced syntax (in the first one), "Phrase Match" has to be set to "Extended".

relic245

digitalscream said:

It's been on the list for....well, forever.

Here are a couple of useful examples...

I feel a bit silly now. I've looked many times for the order by option but somehow been blind to it. There is it. 

Thanks. I'll start to use it more often now. 

digitalscream

relic245 said:

digitalscream said:

It's been on the list for....well, forever.

Here are a couple of useful examples...

I feel a bit silly now. I've looked many times for the order by option but somehow been blind to it. There is it. 

Thanks. I'll start to use it more often now. 

To be fair, it's probably the most unintuitive layout I've ever come across. At  some point, I'll get around to properly fixing it.

monquixote

TTony said:

monquixote said:

It's unintuitive and the default search options are unhelpful.

Both a guide and a couple of layout tweaks would doubtless help a great deal.

@monquixote - if you prep some "how to" notes, I'll happily read through and trial them from an idiot user perspective.  

For something like searching the classifieds I would say:

1. Go to the advanced search page.
2. Choose "all" rather than "any" for the phrase match
3. Select the relevant forum (for example "FX £")
4. Order by "Most recent"

Optionally set the "newer than" field

digitalscream

Thinking about it, "Extended" works exactly the same as "All", but with additional options - which is essentially how Google's search operates. I'm tempted to make it the default for all searches (ie the main search box), and "More Options" then becomes the advanced search page.

That way, you can use all the operators from extended mode straight away..

Also, Recent First is plainly the most sensible default.

TTony

digitalscream said:

Search for all posts by me mentioning the Helix

Would you believe that I never worked out that I needed to enter "@user digitalscream" to find posts by a specific person.

I'd tried using @digitalscream ; or @user=digitalscream or @user:digitalscream (and various other combinations), but never the simple @user digitalscream.

That's probably the sort of tip that is needed ...

monquixote

digitalscream said:

Thinking about it, "Extended" works exactly the same as "All", but with additional options - which is essentially how Google's search operates. I'm tempted to make it the default for all searches (ie the main search box), and "More Options" then becomes the advanced search page.

That way, you can use all the operators from extended mode straight away..

Also, Recent First is plainly the most sensible default.

That makes perfect sense. 

I think on some sites "relevance" makes sense, but given that people are probably searching the classifieds more than anything else recent first a better default.

mrn1989

I get that my thread is in the same vein as this thread however, the google search doesn't narrow down to certain items within specific threads unless somebody knows a trick via iPhone that I'm not aware of??

Ok, I've tried switching to the Full Site on the safari app which kinda works but not fully.

If I search for "Xotic sp comp", select the FX classifieds thread and sort by most recent it comes up with these results.

https://i.imgur.com/HoL9oeP.png
https://i.imgur.com/9icTGfk.png

However there is a thread created August 22nd which includes the key words "Xotic sp comp" but doesn't show in the search results, any idea or should I just put up and shut up?.......I expect probably the latter XD

https://i.imgur.com/c1sC2V1.png

*EDIT I did also try "Xotic sp compressor" and got the same results

digitalscream

@mrn1989 - try it now. I made a bit of a boo-boo, and the indexer hasn't been running properly since the changes I made to mitigate a DoS attack a couple of weeks ago.