HOWTO: Search the SDMB using Google

alterego · May 25, 2009, 10:04pm

**HOWTO: Search the SDMB using Google
**Please post your own useful example searches in this thread. You may also be interested in my Doper RSS guide.

**Searching the entire board or within a forum
**Note that Google has not yet finished indexing the forums as of this writing.

This is the base query of all other queries. In order to restrict your search to a forum you must include a plus sign (+) before the name of the forum in quotes. Otherwise Google will interpret your quoted forum string as meaning “Give me all pages related to the forum”. Google’s relatedness algorithms are extremely fuzzy and return all possible results in the case of the SDMB. Including the plus sign tells Google to “do what I say, not what I mean.” Keep in mind that Google does not know what a forum is so the results still contain some fuzz. If you are constructing a url parameter you must encode the plus sign as %2B since a literal plus sign is interpreted as a space by Google:

[ul]
[li]**SDMB: **site:boards.straightdope.com[/li][LIST]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com[/li][/ul]

[li]ATMB: site:boards.straightdope.com +“About This Message Board”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"About This Message Board"[/li][/ul]

[li]CCC: site:boards.straightdope.com +“Comments on Cecil’s Columns”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"Comments on Cecil’s Columns"[/li][/ul]

[li]CSR: site:boards.straightdope.com +“Comments on Staff Reports”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"Comments on Staff Reports"[/li][/ul]

[li]**GQ: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“General Questions”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"General Questions"[/li][/ul]

[li]**GD: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“Great Debates”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"Great Debates"[/li][/ul]

[li]**CS: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“Cafe Society”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"Cafe Society"[/li][/ul]

[li]**TGR: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“The Game Room”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"The Game Room"[/li][/ul]

[li]**IMHO: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“In My Humble Opinion”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"In My Humble Opinion"[/li][/ul]

[li]**MPSIMS: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share"[/li][/ul]

[li]**The Pit: **site:boards.straightdope.com +“The BBQ Pit”[/li][ul]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com %2B"The BBQ Pit"[/li][/ul]

[/LIST]
**Searching within active threads

**These active thread query constraints are only available as url parameters:

[ul]
[li]Past 24 hours: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com**&tbs=qdr:d**[/li][li]Past week: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com**&tbs=qdr:w**[/li][li]Past month: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com**&tbs=qdr:m**[/li][li]Past year: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com**&tbs=qdr:y**[/li][/ul]
**Searching within a date range using daterange

**Google has a [FONT=Courier New]daterange:start-end parameter but it is difficult to use because it requires Julian dates. You can use this converter from the US Naval Observatory but be sure to hack off the decimal place and everything that follows it since Google only understands the integer portion. Here are a few to get you started. Google’s date matching is good but sometimes a bit fuzzy. I’m using “board years” starting on 3-9-99 since thats the day before the first post (in vBulletin) and it was easiest for me:

**There is also an allintitle field but you will probably find intitle sufficient:

[ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com intitle:“perfect master”[/li][LIST]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com intitle:“perfect master”[/li][/ul]

[/LIST]
**Searching for posts written by a particular user

[SIZE=2]Google can see the “Find all posts by …” text that is visible after you click on the username associated with a post:[/SIZE]
**
[ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com “Find all posts by Cecil Adams”[/li][LIST]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com “Find all posts by Cecil Adams”[/li][/ul]

[/LIST]
A fuzzer variety of this search uses the inanchor field. Anchor text is simply the text that you see when you look at a hyperlink.

[ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com inanchor:“Cecil Adams”[/li][LIST]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com inanchor:“Cecil Adams”[/li][/ul]

[/LIST]
Fuzzier still is a site search for the username.

[ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com “Cecil Adams”[/li][LIST]
[li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com “Cecil Adams”[/li][/ul]

[/LIST]
** Example searches

**Now that we’ve got all the pieces they are easy to put together. Here are some examples.

[ul]
[li]Find all posts that mention decapitation during the french revolution[/li][LIST]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com decapitation “french revolution”[/li][/ul]

[li]Find all posts that mention decapitation in their title and french revolution anywhere else[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com “french revolution” intitle:decapitation[/li][/ul]

[li]Find all posts written during the french revolution that mention decapitation. Hmm, I wonder why there aren’t any results…:smack:[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com decapitation daterange:2374479-2378131[/li][/ul]

[li]Find all posts written between 2008-2009 that mention Obama[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com obama daterange:2454466-2454832[/li][/ul]

[li]Find all posts by QED in the last year that occur in threads which mention gas. First you’ll have to find all posts by QED that occur in threads which mention gas and then add the [FONT=Courier New]&tbs=qdr:y url parameter. Note that its not possible to find all posts by QED that mention gas.[/li][/FONT]
[ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com “Find all posts by QED” gas[/li][li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com “Find all posts by QED” gas&tbs=qdr:y[/li][/ul]

[li]Conversations involving Charter Members but not Guests. elitism++[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com -Guest +“Charter Member”[/li][/ul]

[li]Moderator activity in the last day[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com Moderator[/li][li]http://www.google.com/search?q=site:boards.straightdope.com Moderator&tbs=qdr:d[/li][/ul]

[li]All NSFW General Questions[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com NSFW +“General Questions”[/li][/ul]

[li]Conversations involving Guests but not Charter Members or Members. Also filter out the static html archives. elitism–[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com guest -“Charter Member” -Member -“View Full Version”[/li][/ul]

[li]A strange collection of threads with no authors[/li][ul]
[li]site:boards.straightdope.com guest -“Find all posts by” -“View Full Version”[/li][/ul]

[/LIST]

Exapno_Mapcase · May 25, 2009, 10:57pm

And the winner for post of the year goes to…

alterego!

Covered_In_Bees · May 25, 2009, 11:02pm

Of the year? Could you be any more insulting? I’m ready to give him the decade for that. Can you imagine how much work went into posting that? And for what? For other people, not just himself or kudos or an A rating in The Pit.

Truly a great post that should be stickied.

C_K_Dexter_Haven · May 26, 2009, 12:44am

I’m putting it up as a Sticky for now… Great work, alterego

alterego · May 26, 2009, 2:53am

Thanks guys! I used exactly one breakfast’s worth of energy to write this. Eating when I started, starving when I finished… however long that takes

It would be nice if we could have one of the Google Site Search mods for vBulletin (example) and this linked to from there as a custom help doc and/or a sticky. This has the benefit of automatically filling in the ‘site:boards.straightdope.com’ portion of the queries. We’ll see what TPTB decide.

BigT · May 26, 2009, 7:47am

That “Find all posts” thing was brilliant. That’s the one thing I hadn’t figured out how to do (that I have needed in the past).

twickster · May 26, 2009, 1:50pm

Wow. Just … wow.

And thanks.

Wow and thanks.

Wow.

And thanks.

rowrrbazzle · May 26, 2009, 6:52pm

Absolutely. Thank you, alterego!

Now who’s going to code and host a web page that’ll allow easy use of all the above?

C_K_Dexter_Haven · October 11, 2009, 12:05am

Moderator note: I have incorporated the OP into the FAQ - Technical Issues, and it’s found here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11650034#post11650034

I’m un-sticking this thread, so it will fall to the bottom over time, although discussion is certainly still possible.