BusinessObjects Board

Where did Google search go?

about
#1

As of the last two months Google has essentially stopped paying referral fees to BOB on search results. Because of this we have removed the Google custom search box from the bottom of the page until we hear back from them regarding this new development. At the same time we have also removed the Google text ads that appeared on the bottom of the page. What impact does this have on BOB?

First of all, while it makes the Google search less convenient, it does not prevent you from using Google to search the site. You can open a new tab / new browser window, go to Google, and enter your search terms. To ensure that you only hit this site, add the following text to your search input form:

site:www.forumtopics.com

For example, if I wanted to search for the terms “google search” and limit the results to pages from this site, I would enter the following in my google search form:

google search site:www.forumtopics.com

Note that when you do this, the results will be shown in a Google window and not within the forum framework that we had before. We do apologize for this inconvenience but until we complete our discussion with Google as to why they have changed their behavior the search window will not be displayed.

New Custom Search Coming…
We have been working on an alternate search method for quite a long time. This issue with Google may prove to be the final incentive needed to make the switch. It is our hope to roll out a limited “beta” version of the improved search sometime this week, with GA (general availability) coming soon after that. The new search form will take the place of the google search form but will provide a number of special features. For one thing, you will be able to search for exact phrases. We have been running BOB with an extra search index in place for about two months now and have not noticed any degradation in performance. By removing the references to Google’s javascript (required for the google ads and google search box at the bottom of the page) our page load times should actually get better.

So while we realize that the loss of the search form at the bottom of the page may prove to be an inconvenience in the short term, we hope that the longer term solution we’re working on will prove to be a better option.

Thanks for your patience while we work through this.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in this topic. Thanks.

Bob (BOB member since 2002-06-06)

Search in BOB
Who changed the way you Search through BoB???
What happened to Google Search within BOBJ ?
#2

Hello

Any updates since the November posting? I am anxious to see what the team has up their collective sleeves… :yesnod:

REB01 :us: (BOB member since 2004-11-29)

#3

Yes, I was getting better results with Google search!!!

dcdas :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

#4

You can still use Google Search. You will get better results using the (external) Google Search. The internal search gives me inconsistent results, by dropping terms in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. I.e.,

If I do a search on “print to form” (without the quotes), I get:

No topics or posts met your search criteria for [b]Keywords Search[/b]
[b]Search Keywords:[/b] print to form
[b]Keywords Used:[/b] print to form
[b]Keywords Stopped:[/b] None

Whereas, if I do a search for “print form”, I get four (4) pages of posts. None that I need, but still, you see the problem.

Using the external Google Search gives you more leeway in constructing your search, and you will get more results, and if you’re careful, BETTER results…

mvisconte (BOB member since 2008-01-17)