In the best interest of helping people use Drupal and find the information that they are looking for, I would like to suggest that Drupal.org use Google Site Search or some other similar 3rd party search mechanism. I know this will make some people mad because it implies that Google works better than Drupal search. This doesn't concern me nearly as much as the fact that I can't find anything useful by typing a search word into the little box in the upper right hand corner of this site.
For anyone who needs convincing that Google does a better job, please compare these two searches for 'htaccess':
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=htaccess&as_sitesearch=drupal.org
http://drupal.org/search&keys=htaccess
The benefits of integrating Google Site Search don't just end at the site users getting to their info faster. It will directly lead to a reduced number of duplicate postings. Most users are, contrary to what it seems, responsible citizens and search for the answer to their question before crying to the community for help. My experience is very often negative with this approach: I almost never find what I'm looking for by searching first. I've read the Drupal handbook, so if it's in there, I'll find it without searching. Otherwise, I probably won't find it at all, as things are.
The second benefit would be the pocket change that would be generated by being a Google affiliate. This would probably add up to something with three digits at the end of the year and can go to offsetting the costs of hosting Drupal, promoting Drupal, or straight into Dries' pocket, for all I care. In any case, somebody would be glad the money is there.
That's my 2 cents. If everybody disagrees with me, I hope you tell me so. Otherwise, I look forward to being able to search Drupal meaningfully in the near future.
Robert Douglass
Comments
pros and cons
Since the development of drupal (and all oss projects for that matter) is scratching one's own itch, I would be against this. Once drupal's will use google's search option, there will be less need for drupal.org (the site) to code a good search engine in drupal (the software). And that will stall drupals rise within intranets running drupal since intranets cant by definition be spidered by external sites such as google.
Another con would be that drupal has potentially much more and richer information about postings (taxonomy, users infromation etc) so all that there is to make a good search engine is there.
The pro, it just works better with google...
--
groets
bertb
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groets
bert boerland
Search progress isn't relative to need
It's nice to be philosophical about it, but the need is there, and despite the itch, there seems to be very little scratching going on (sorry if someone out there has been staying up all night writing search code that I'm unaware of). There is no pagination of search results, there is no context for the search phrase shown, multi word searches aren't possible (or am I wrong on all this?), 'sorted by relevance' is pretty funny when Drupal says it - so the practical fact is that the need isn't driving development. You argue that not highlighting Drupal's bad search function will stall acceptance in intranets. I argue that stalling overall Drupal usability and development because nobody can find answers to questions that have been asked and answered 50 times is much more damaging.
- Robert Douglass
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visit me at www.robshouse.net
its not philosophical
It is 1000's drupal implementations versus one (the) drupal site. and there is some action going on. Forces like these (people asking to use gooles search for drupal.org) will encourage people to write a better search engine? I hope... :-)
And to make sure it does:
We can however use google for drupal! I am currently hosting some google ads(ense) on my site, and while it doesnt generate lots of money (50 usd in 2 month), I think I'll have 100 USD in a month or two, three.
I'll donate this money to the person who will come up with a good search engine in drupal 4.6 and is willing to maintain it at least 1/2 a year. Anyone else wants to put some money in it or wants to use my e google adsense ID for his/her site to donate this to the "open drupal fund"?
note: I'll NOT use the money for myself and will make all progress visible!
Rules to be discussed later. Takers (coders and those willing to donate) can drop a line at drupal-fund AT boerland DOT com or leave a message here.
--
groets
bertb
--
groets
bert boerland
Search tools in Drupal
I fully have to agree on that. I testify that starting over about some month ago I had more success in finding code solutions dissambling many Drupal Installations on my local test server , THAT using the Drupal On Site search-box.
Well some people will say that Drupal have a lot of ways to build a Target-Search-Functionality for finding relevant data relative to the Content use of each Drupal backed CMS Sites. Yes they are expert as more then just few month like I am.
I agree fully that I appreciate to have found such a great Open source but is also important that if the ideology of Open source should continue to have success in backing people with knowledge all over the World to achieve their Task using Open Source like Linux World achieved with the use of Google search engines then it's time
to go deeper in that responsability to allow no specialist to finde and get Knowledge in a simple and exact way.
Yes endeed thats is a lot of work but it is basically to compete with all Commercial Software Corporations which task is to let user be totally dependent from their Solutions and Support.
Please forgive me for my sintactical and grammatical way of expressing my ideas in english here.
Finally I want to say that even with that weak point in Drupal'Site searching utilitity i'm really happy to strenght my self fortunately with the possibiloity to have some more Machine where I can do my testing experiments to go deeply in ther core structure of Drupal.
I will surely then at the right time try to help those who do not have a private high quality Network to play around at home, like I have the fortune to dispone.
Thank You for reading
Online Virtual Systems and Network Environments for Test and Practice for Everybody
http://www.adaccs.at/drupal/
Contact me for drupal projects in English, German, Italian, Drupal Hosting Support.
Now THAT is an extremely sensible point!!
The fact is that for an external site there is no beating Google, if you just want to search in node content..... But of course Google is generic, and knows nothing about Drupal's classification for example.
What bertb says is so true! Here's some things you could do:
- sort by date
- sort by user
- display the taxonomy attached to each result (yes!!)
- display links to related items
I know nothing about search algorithms, but that would give some nice extra options that Google would not and could not.
So why not have a site with BOTH searches?
JoelG
I agree
I think Google should be added to drupal.org I use it on my drupal site. The search in the top right hand corner may look nice with drupal but It just isn't as good a google.
Sorry and all that.
Miles
For what it's worth, I agree.
It's difficult to believe that software as advanced as Drupal could reach version 4.5 and still not have a "real" search function.
I don't think that relying on an external engine is the best way, but it's simple enough to make a custom block or form for Google.
Why? If no one who knew or c
Why? If no one who knew or cared enough about the subject needed it, why would it get more attention. I believe I have seen the occassional posts form some of the developers indicating that they would certainly be open to any search improvements offered. I certainly don't know enough about search algorythms to pretend to make one up.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Your Right!
I agree, it would help avoid duplicate postings. Case in point. I just posted a question about mass mailing users because I couldn't find anything using the drupal search. After reading your post I reran my query using Google and had hits on similar postings.
FWScan
-You Are Vulnerable-
Search enginge for Firefox
Search engine to add Google search.
use the google toolbar
You can always use the google toolbar to do a site search of drupal.org.
Meanwhile, one problem with making google the default search engine at drupal.org is that you're dependent on google's spidering schedule, and as a result, you're not going to turn up the most recent posts in your searches.
I just finished a Google Search module
Hi,
I just finished developing a Google API module. It could be seen in action here: http://news.healthelp.org . I am waiting to post the module to the Drupal CVS, if aproved, but in the mean time you could find it here: http://www.solutionsdepot.com.
Please send me any sugestions you may have related this module.
Thanks
I'm very interested in looking at this
...but could not find the ZIP file mentioned!
Luis, Awesome (works like a
Luis, Awesome (works like a charm on news.health.org) .
But where is the link for the zip download. I logged in to your solutionsdepot but looks like you have forgot to upload the module zip file.
we can send you suggestions regarding the same, if you can make it available for us to download. By the way, it looks like you havent got cvs account yet.
Just a problem with permissions
Anonymous users were not able to see uploads.
module is here: http://www.solutionsdepot.com/?q=google_api_search_module_for_drupal
Sorry
No CVS account yet
I still do not have a CVS account.
Regarding Drupal Search Module, I believe it works perfectly well, but I just do not want several MB of database (in my site the searh index grows up to 40MB) just to have search in a site that is anywhere accesible by Google.
I thing Drupal search is crucial for intranet sites, or sites with content not available to the public, paid content, etc that should be accesible to registered users and other similar situations.
What's the status of this?
I tried using leflores' Google Search module, but the block would not display.
Module into module, enabled, configured with API key...
And then when I enable the block - nothing. No failure messages, just nothing.
how to install Google Search Module...
I did the usual extract and turn on of the module -- however it doesn't look like anything is different from the regular search...is there code changes that need to be done in the Google module?
I saw that it says this can be used 'in place of' the regular search but when you turn off the normal search module, the search box at the top disappears.
thanks
Angela
You need to file a support request
Go to the project page for the Google search module, click on the link to report a new bug, change the Category from bug to support request, and ask your question there. By asking your question here, in the middle of a mostly unrelated thread that is two years old, you're unlikely to get a satisfactory answer.
- Robert Douglass
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My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress
lucene as a search engine
An alternative seems to me to try to use the open source Lucene as a search engine. See http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/index.html for a description.
Drupal's 4.7 search is really good
The original post is completely irrelevant for 4.7. Now that Drupal.org is running on 4.7, search is vastly improved.
- Robert Douglass
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My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress
How about attached files?
True that the advanced search offers a lot of options; it looks good. I assume that the search does not include attached files, which would be possible by using an existing search engine solution.
What would you suggest if site owners want to have their search to include attached files?