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Additional search engines Started by badmonkey · · Read 4760 times 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. previous topic - next topic

Additional search engines

Hi ladies and gents!  Hope everyone is well today!    8)


Is there a way to disable the forum's internal search function and rely solely on the Additional search engines?  I have configured a Google engine function like this:  https://www.google.com/search?q=site:mysite.com+       using + as the word separator.   Works great!   :)

The idea is keep the database light by not carrying a search index, and no need for a search daemon such as Sphinx.  (as great as it is resources are still consumed)

Re: Additional search engines

Reply #1 –

Hello
I looked in the admin panel and indeed there is no quick option to disable search. Another alternative could be to disable permissions for guests & normal users to use search option (I didn't test it, but should work). Let us know if this work ;)
sorry for my bad english

Re: Additional search engines

Reply #2 –

Nope, there isn't such an option.
Disable the internal search entirely would make non-public boards unsearchable (because hidden to google).
I think removing the search permission should remove the box entirely, but the idea is good, it may be some kind of option in future releases.
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.

Re: Additional search engines

Reply #3 –

With a Google only search, don't you loose all of the extra features, like search by member, on only in certain boards, or most recent posts first, etc ?  Just asking since I generally don't let google hit my sites, its no resource freebie either.

I would select "No index" as the search method, and then remove search from permissions, that should be as lite as you can get.

Re: Additional search engines

Reply #4 –

Quote from: Spuds – With a Google only search, don't you loose all of the extra features, like search by member, on only in certain boards, or most recent posts first, etc ?  Just asking since I generally don't let google hit my sites, its no resource freebie either.
Yes you would lose those features. I did something similar on smf not long ago. However now I just limit searching to specific member levels/post count users.

There are ways to do custom searching via googles search
It would just take some custom html and php work to change the buttons search url for a specific section. Eg.

Search site button. https://www.google.com/search?q=site:elkarte.net*

Search Current Board button. https://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://www.elkarte.net/community/index.php?board=1.0
-> toss in something like the rel="index" php snippet to get the current page. There might be a better snippet to use, this is just an example.

Re: Additional search engines

Reply #5 –

Thanks, interesting approaches / ideas, at least you recover some of the lost features. 

Still seems like many relevance factors would be lost since it really does not have access to db and the real thread structure, but who knows, I'd have to do some testing.  Since I really don't see any performance drag I don't really have an interest in changing, it just a learning thing for me.

Re: Additional search engines

Reply #6 –

Quote from: Spuds – Thanks, interesting approaches / ideas, at least you recover some of the lost features. 

Still seems like many relevance factors would be lost since it really does not have access to db and the real thread structure, but who knows, I'd have to do some testing.  Since I really don't see any performance drag I don't really have an interest in changing, it just a learning thing for me.
There's ways to make it 'work' but I agree its far from ideal.
Imo its not really worth the loss of features. If searching is causing excess load I just increase the wait time between searches until things simmer down.