Google Programmable Search Engine tool

JimD

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Working from @Kendall 's tip on using Google to achieve more accurate Xweb search results, I created an Xweb specific Google search using Google's programmable search tool. I typed in "k20" (without the quotes) and it didn't complain about too few letters, so that is good. Just type what you are looking for and it "should" search Xweb. It does return some fluff at the top.

Here is the custom Xweb search link. Please test it out and see if it works. It says it is "public", but we shall see.
 
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I just gave it a try, works great. First try just put lsd, got lots of relevant hits. Well done.
 
I just gave it a try, works great. First try just put lsd, got lots of relevant hits. Well done.
Thanks for testing it Greg. Sometimes things like this only work for the creator, not everyone else.
 
I just gave it a try, works great. First try just put lsd, got lots of relevant hits. Well done.
So you're saying you just asked Google and it gave you lots of hits of LSD? :p


Working from @Kendall 's tip on using Google to achieve more accurate Xweb, I created an Xweb specific Google search using Google's programmable search tool. I typed in "k20" (without the quotes) and it didn't complain about too few letters, so that is good. Just type what you are looking for and it "should" search Xweb. It does return some fluff at the top.

Here is the custom Xweb search link. Please test it out and see if it works. It says it is "public", but we shall see.
Works for me also Jim. Thanks for doing that. 🌟

Since I know nothing about these things, would it be possible to incorporate that into the Xweb site somehow? I mean so it appears somewhere on the forum page itself.
 
It's suppose it is possible. That would be up to the admin. My plan was to put links at the top of the BOX. I believe we could have a search for all of xweb, a second for just the WF and a third for the DF.

This is just the test phase.
 
DF specific search test link.


Hmmm.... it doesn't like the link to the DF. :(

It seems the Google programmable search set up doesn't like the way our sub-forums' URLs are formatted. At least, I can't figure out how to make it work.
 
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The WF and DF have so much content overlap I don't think you'd really want to isolate them when searching.
 
Thanks. Well done. It is nice to have the Google search engine without all the non-Xweb results....aside from the ads at the top of the page.
 
aside from the fluff
I've only used it a few times but so far it appears they only post a couple of "sponsored" links at the very beginning of the results list (top of page 1). After that everything is Xweb specific. And those initial "advertisement" listings have a different appearance to them, so I automatically look past them and go straight to the good stuff. In other words there was a little learning curve to get a feel for the results received, which is a small price to pay for a better search tool. ;)
 
I know nothing about such things but is it possible to do a search on it for a specific member posts? The Xweb version has that capability but I don't have good success with that search tool in general.
 
I know nothing about such things but is it possible to do a search on it for a specific member posts? The Xweb version has that capability but I don't have good success with that search tool in general.
You can type the username in the search field. I do that sometimes if I remember who was discussing the topic I am looking for. I don't think it looks at the member name field, it is most likely looking at info in the signature since that is in the body of the post. I could be wrong. Try typing "kmead fuel" or something similar and see how it works for you. (Picking on Karl just because.)

I spent several hours trying to set up fancier searches through the GSE, but it was either impossible with the structure of Xweb, or I am not smart enough to figure it out.
 
That's great, thanks. I also posted this somewhere else - if you don't remember the link above, you can use a regular google search and just include "and site:xwebforums.com" at the end. Works like a charm.
 
You can type the username in the search field. I do that sometimes if I remember who was discussing the topic I am looking for. I don't think it looks at the member name field, it is most likely looking at info in the signature since that is in the body of the post. I could be wrong. Try typing "kmead fuel" or something similar and see how it works for you. (Picking on Karl just because.)

I spent several hours trying to set up fancier searches through the GSE, but it was either impossible with the structure of Xweb, or I am not smart enough to figure it out.
Thanks. That's what I've been doing but it seems to only pull up posts that have that user name in the context of the post, not posts by that user.....as far as I can tell anyway.
 
Thanks. That's what I've been doing but it seems to only pull up posts that have that user name in the context of the post, not posts by that user.....as far as I can tell anyway.
I didn't see anyway to make it look at specific fields. Sorry. It is what it is at this point. If I find more time I may do some more research.
 
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