Just install the Google toolbar - it has a "search site" feature that's great.
Just install the Google toolbar - it has a "search site" feature that's great.
It is great, but it won't work on the FreeRepublic archives, except for threads that someone has explicitly linked to elsewhere on the web.
Google indexes web pages by "crawling" around the zillions of links on the web, indexing any page it discovers that way. Unfortunately, the FreeRepublic archived threads are not all "hooked" to other web page(s), they're "free floating", and can only be reached via specific title-word searches from the Search page. This means that they are not indexed anywhere in Google.
FreeRepublic *could* be totally indexed and searchable via Google (and other internet index sites) if John would make a "master index of threads" page by which any past thread on FR could be reached *solely* by following links (including "go to next page" links). The actual indexing, index storage, and search queries would all be done using Google's resources, it would place no greater load on the FR servers. But it seems that John and Jim prefer not to do that, perhaps because it would be useful to those who would like to harm FR, even though it would be very useful to FR's members and friends as well.