Google based forum search functionality has become pretty useless (for me)

catherder

Has anyone the same problems with the forum search that I have: Google often finds nothing - even for subjects that I know they do exist. This is definitely related to the forum name / domain change.
I am generally not a big fan of using Google search as a site search.
Would it be possible to replace the Google based search with some form of built-in search? I am not familiar with this forum software but many CMS have built in search functionality.

Pxlhg

Yeah, you're not alone🙃 I have noticed it too. It used to be really good, not that I used it that much but I remember being happy with the result.. it's not as bad as the Apple Store search though, they must have been severely intoxicated writing that piece of mystery.

catherder

@Pxlhg said:
Yeah, you're not alone🙃 I have noticed it too. It used to be really good, not that I used it that much but I remember being happy with the result.. it's not as bad as the Apple Store search though, they must have been severely intoxicated writing that piece of mystery.

I wonder if the forum site is still running on the old Google Analytics / Search Console ID. This usually means trouble…

rs2000

@catherder said:

@Pxlhg said:
Yeah, you're not alone🙃 I have noticed it too. It used to be really good, not that I used it that much but I remember being happy with the result.. it's not as bad as the Apple Store search though, they must have been severely intoxicated writing that piece of mystery.

I wonder if the forum site is still running on the old Google Analytics / Search Console ID. This usually means trouble…

I'm also struggling with finding certain posts from the past, the first matches sometimes don't make any sense - whatever Google think I should see first.

You can try switching to "verbatim" search mode so hopefully Google will search for the words as you've entered them.

Simon

If you are looking for a word in a Forum thread title like "lockdown" go to Google and type:

lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us

This method gives me a result when the search box in the top right hand side of the Forum doesn't.

Pxlhg

@Simon said:
If you are looking for a word in a Forum thread title like "lockdown" go to Google and type:

lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us

This method gives me a result when the search box in the top right hand side of the Forum doesn't.

I get the exact same result as before, I know there are two threads with this word in the title but they don't come up, freshest result is from June -24. Seems indexing is lagging behind.

veitz

LayR site:https://forum.loopypro.com/

veitz

https://swisscows.com/de/web?query=LayR+site:https://forum.loopypro.com/&freshness=Year

This page also uses the google search, but finds much more !?
Search period last year.

veitz

Gavinski

@Pxlhg said:

@Simon said:
If you are looking for a word in a Forum thread title like "lockdown" go to Google and type:

lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us

This method gives me a result when the search box in the top right hand side of the Forum doesn't.

I get the exact same result as before, I know there are two threads with this word in the title but they don't come up, freshest result is from June -24. Seems indexing is lagging behind.

Hmm, weird then, because I get lots of results when searching lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us
For example:

garden

Ooh. Nice find. Google has become total shit, and I’m always on the lookout for good alts.

Jumpercollins

Yes agreed started happening a few weeks back weird what’s happened to search.

reasOne

Yah the search is broken for sure, i was looking for an older post about AUM the other day and it wouldn’t come up in search no matter how i worded it

Pxlhg

@Gavinski said:

@Pxlhg said:

@Simon said:
If you are looking for a word in a Forum thread title like "lockdown" go to Google and type:

lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us

This method gives me a result when the search box in the top right hand side of the Forum doesn't.

I get the exact same result as before, I know there are two threads with this word in the title but they don't come up, freshest result is from June -24. Seems indexing is lagging behind.

Hmm, weird then, because I get lots of results when searching lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us
For example:

Those hits are pretty old, I did say in my post that the freshest result was from June. Search for something fairly new... sometimes a thread you have interest in get shewed up pretty fast and then it's tedious as fuck to find it again but the search has always helped with that. Now it's hit or miss.

Gavinski

@Pxlhg said:

@Gavinski said:

@Pxlhg said:

@Simon said:
If you are looking for a word in a Forum thread title like "lockdown" go to Google and type:

lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us

This method gives me a result when the search box in the top right hand side of the Forum doesn't.

I get the exact same result as before, I know there are two threads with this word in the title but they don't come up, freshest result is from June -24. Seems indexing is lagging behind.

Hmm, weird then, because I get lots of results when searching lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us
For example:

Those hits are pretty old, I did say in my post that the freshest result was from June. Search for something fairly new... sometimes a thread you have interest in get shewed up pretty fast and then it's tedious as fuck to find it again but the search has always helped with that. Now it's hit or miss.

Yeah, I think I have found it's hit and miss too. Seemed initially like it was likely to be a very short term thing after the name change, but if it's still not working normally, that's very odd.

Goldiblockz

@Pxlhg said:

@Gavinski said:

@Pxlhg said:

@Simon said:
If you are looking for a word in a Forum thread title like "lockdown" go to Google and type:

lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us

This method gives me a result when the search box in the top right hand side of the Forum doesn't.

I get the exact same result as before, I know there are two threads with this word in the title but they don't come up, freshest result is from June -24. Seems indexing is lagging behind.

Hmm, weird then, because I get lots of results when searching lockdown site:https://forum.audiob.us
For example:

Those hits are pretty old, I did say in my post that the freshest result was from June. Search for something fairly new... sometimes a thread you have interest in get shewed up pretty fast and then it's tedious as fuck to find it again but the search has always helped with that. Now it's hit or miss.

It seems to me like it caught up for a moment, and then stopped completely. Haven't bothered searching anything for a couple weeks now.

uncledave

This is been discussed quite a lot in the new forum announcement thread, starting with this entry. It definitely seems like Google isn't keeping up, so recent stuff is hard to find.

offbrands

This isn’t being said to make light or provide no empathy, it sucks.

Though, while cleaning out my notes app I’ve been annoyed at the size of the folder but for this forums search issues I’m feeling sort of vindicated for past me being a screen shot advocate for any and all posts or comments I wanted to reference 😛

But really nothing is eternal. If something is really important or potentially useful enough to remember to look it up, it’s worthy of a screenshot or a copy and paste into a document and have it locally. The internet is written in pencil, not ink.

I have a document for every app I spend time looking at online and copy paste screenshots or text within it.

If space is no bother you can PDF screenshot save them on iOS or print to pdf.

I just have done a fair amount of research / reference work for clients to have learned the hard way when something goes missing on the internet i should have backed it up in some way and need to plan accordingly.

This is meant to be helpful! I empathize 100% with Ya’ll

offbrands

Also duckduckgo may provide some better results for some people. Same thing just search with

site:https://forum.loopypro.com/

Or

site:https://forum.audiob.us/

Michael

That’s annoying! Does anyone who uses Vanilla elsewhere of any good search plug-ins? If memory serves, the built-in search is not good.

I’ll try prompting Google to do a re-index, I did use their web property removalist service, but it seems like it’s flaky. Also, they broke half of the good china in the move.

uncledave

@Michael said:
That’s annoying! Does anyone who uses Vanilla elsewhere of any good search plug-ins? If memory serves, the built-in search is not good.

I’ll try prompting Google to do a re-index, I did use their web property removalist service, but it seems like it’s flaky. Also, they broke half of the good china in the move.

Hi. Yes, the trouble with the Vanilla search is that it lists every post containing the term (including quotes), not just one post in a thread. So it floods the results with a single thread. This is what we saw when you tried it just after the switchover.

wim

@rs2000 was good enough to post earlier about syntax that he uses to make the Drambo forum Vanilla search more effective. There is actually a way to make it do and searches. I haven't tried that yet. It's utterly useless (to me) otherwise, but I'm happy enough to just search with google and appending site:forum.beepstreet.com to the search term.

Might be worth a try though, with some note available about the syntax helpers, if the re-index doesn't help.

rs2000

@wim said:
@rs2000 was good enough to post earlier about syntax that he uses to make the Drambo forum Vanilla search more effective. There is actually a way to make it do and searches. I haven't tried that yet. It's utterly useless (to me) otherwise, but I'm happy enough to just search with google and appending site:forum.beepstreet.com to the search term.

Might be worth a try though, with some note available about the syntax helpers, if the re-index doesn't help.

What works on the beepstreet native Vanilla search (+string1 +string2 to search for words all contained in a post) does not seem to work here. But at least the "Verbatim" search mode works better for me in the google site: search.

Funnily, I got better results when I've just searched forum.loopypro.com on duckduckgo.com instead.
The site:forum.loopypro.com syntax works there too.

pseudophysics

just put „ios forum“ behind your search on google. works well for me

https://www.google.de/search?q=layr+ios+forum&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=de-de&client=safari

Simon

@rs2000 said:
Funnily, I got better results when I've just searched forum.loopypro.com on duckduckgo.com instead.

Me too.

My search for "lockdown" with Google using "site:forum.loopypro.com lockdown" didn't find the thread I was after.

On duck duck it did.

Michael

Duck duck it is then