There used to be a way to search the archives for Cecil’s columns / Staff Reports. A search box on the front page. There doesn’t appear to be a way to do that now. The search box is gone, and there’s no search box under the “Archives” tab either, which I recall used to be an option.
There’s a custom Google Search box on the main SD page, but it’s consistently turning up “No Results,” even using search terms that I know should return several columns.
If I type “[search term] site:straightdope.com” it returns pages from the boards, not the SD archives.
I fear that Google may have re-indexed the site during the recent outage, thus absolutely destroying the Dope’s page rank and actually removing it from Google’s results.
Even a verbose search for “A note from Cecil Adams about The Straight Dope”, easily the most famous article in recent memory, does not yield a result on Google from the straightdope.com domain. That article is linked to all over the internet, but Google seems to have forgotten it exists.
A search for “site:straightdope.com” does not return the homepage as the first result. This almost surely means the Straight Dope has been de-indexed by Google. Which is very bad.
TubaDiva will probably need to contact Google ASAP if she has not done so already.
What does this mean and why is it bad? I can still use Google to search for threads on the board. You’re saying Google can search the boards but not the SD archives?
Yeah, as you suggested I used www.straightdope.com instead using my search terms and it took me to several results in a huge index. Like, 2000 columns. I used F3 to narrow it using keywords and found the individual column I was looking for. Still kind of a PITA.
Think of it like a business directory. On the day that Google decided to check if the www.straightdope.com is still in business, the website was down, so Google took it off the directory. I guess the archive listings and sponsor page were still working because that’s still showing up, but all of the individual articles have been removed from Google search results.
The message boards are still listed because that starts with “boards.” instead of “www.”
It’s bad because I’m sure lots of people still visit the Straight Dope from Google, just as an interesting result to an interesting question. Alexa Internet says some 40% of visitors to the main site come straight from Google. That number is at risk of dropping to zero. If the site isn’t being returned in Google search results, that means less people read the Straight Dope columns, which means less people have their ignorance fought, which is counter to the purpose of this place.
My first encounter with the Straight Dope was through Google, I was searching about the physics of a cubed planet. If the Dope was de-indexed on that day, it is unlikely that I would be on this board today. So we are missing out on potential board members, too.