FR Search tool for those who swear "search don't work"

The Internet ^ | today | self

[xcamel]

A quick and dirty search of any and all of FreeRepublic thanks to Google 'site:' function.

No more excuses...

Google results for site:freerepublic.com.

[xcamel]

Have at it..

[Spktyr]

Yes, this really does work.

Now, why don’t we just use this as an embed in the site instead of the mostly broken and almost never works search function we have now?

[mnehring]

The problem isn't FreeRepublic, it is members not switching to ‘search by title’ and/or folks who post threads (I am so guilty of this) and not include keywords.

[SouthTexas]

Found this:

Stoooooopidity : On Search Engines and Modern Ignorance (is Google making us lazy ?)

FreeRepublic

[JennysCool]

Many newspapers slap their own headlines on stories and columns, thus the same article appearing in one paper may carry a different title in another.

[xcamel]

Good question...
Like Why to the monthly donors have to “suffer through freepathons” when it would be soooo easy to tag a a monthy donor’s screen name with a ‘paid’ tag - and avoid all the nagware adds for 50 or 60 days a quarter???

[xcamel]

Ah.. but it searches the text of the article too... so if you tried the first line of the story.... guess what....

[Boundless]

Any external search engine can, and does, index FR
contents.

This is very useful for finding old stuff.

Alas, it is nearly useless for avoiding dupes, because
the indexing is only done a few times a day.

Best way to avoid dupes on recent news:
1. Find the original story publisher.
2. Use FR title search on the exact title from the source.

It still won’t catch the dupe 30 seconds ahead of you.

On unmoderated, or post-moderated sites, this just
comes with the territory. If you are the dupe, ask
a mod to merge, lock or kill you.

[xcamel]

searching FYI

[valkyry1]

So google search works better?

You might have a point.

[TomGuy]

the mostly broken and almost never works search function we have now

Many of us have hoped John would spend time making a real search feature and add post editing, instead of upgrading by changing the fonts and appearance.

That last round of upgrading was ridiculous. Several times a day I was having to readjust browser and desktop fonts from massively large to exceedingly tiny just to read the threads.

[Spktyr]

I’ve done “Search By Title” repeatedly, with null results, and then had a Google search find the exact title I was looking for.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

AWESOME!

BumpForLater.

[Spktyr]

Another innovation that should be used is the [img][/img] tags used on other forums. Most everyone knows how to use those - having to do a full HTML embed AND have to go through and add paragraph tags is so 1990s.

[GaryLee1990]

I got 5 million.

FuzzySnake.com

[Spktyr]

Sirs, respectfully calling your attention to this thread. Can we please get some of these issues fixed/resolved/added?

[xcamel]

That could be a very valuable link after a bit...

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

So google search works better?

I seem to remember back about a year after google became known that there was some commentary to the effect that google was not including all FR posts. Do not know if this was true or if it has changed.

[xcamel]

FYI your pinglist (spread it around)

[TomGuy]

IIRC, there was a period a few years ago when the Google search engine was prohibited from “indexing” FR threads.

That apparently has changed in recent years.

I use Google frequently to search FR.

I just wish Google had a ‘search only before XXX date’ capability. It would help on locating old articles, etc.