LWN gets a search engine [LWN.net]

Well, it took longer than we expected (but, then, what hasn't?), but LWN now, once again, has a search engine. While not, perhaps, the world's greatest, it is better than anything we had before. It currently only indexes the new site; we still haven't figured out what to do about searching the older content.

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LWN gets a search engine

Posted Nov 5, 2002 6:16 UTC (Tue) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]

It's nice to have a search engine again.

I haven't used mnoGoSearch, but I'm under the impression it will spider and index external web sites, so it might be able to capture old.lwn.net and incorporate it into the searches.

Haven't used it, but it might be worth a look.

http://www.mnogosearch.org

LWN gets a search engine

Posted Nov 5, 2002 9:42 UTC (Tue) by tres (guest, #352) [Link]

Thanks!!!

Naturally my first search was my name (to see the letters/comments that I had writen). Although this might not be the correct place for a bug report the search terms "Tres" and "Bitkeeper" (both individually and combined) returned "No searchable terms provided". It did however return results when the terms were provided in lower case. So may I suggest a short instruction page or something to that affect. Maybe even changing the input strings to lower case.

Thanks again,
Tres

Bug report.

Posted Nov 5, 2002 10:13 UTC (Tue) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]

...when searching for "BitKeeper" there are also no results. FYI.

Case sensitivity

Posted Nov 5, 2002 13:18 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Everything is indexed in lower case internally; it was easier that way. I just forgot to do the same thing with the search terms provided by the user. I've already fixed it, it's just waiting for the next code update on the site to go live.

A little silly, but, as brown paper bag bugs go, I've seen worse...

just point people to Google

Posted Nov 5, 2002 16:26 UTC (Tue) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]

Note that I've been using Google to search lwn.net for a while now.
Just append "site:lwn.net" to a search on the front pagen and bingo,
instant search of the lwn.net site.

I don't know if lwn.net can leverage this directly, but I've seen
other people do stuff like this (they have a "Google" search "box"
on their front page that basically does this). I expect that costs
money?

Pete Flugstad

just point people to Google

Posted Nov 5, 2002 21:19 UTC (Tue) by and (subscriber, #2883) [Link]

additionally google searches usually give better results and are faster. maybe a "search @ google" button would be a good idea :-)

just point people to Google

Posted Nov 7, 2002 13:42 UTC (Thu) by Psychopath (guest, #4501) [Link]

I think it only costs money if you want the results page be customized. (To have the look&feel of the searched page)

Though I wonder whether google would be willing to donate this :) I guess it would not be a heavy burden for them and as far as I know they're using Linux heavily... just an idea for a donations in kind ;-)