A more effective way to search Practical Hacks & other blogs

I have mixed feelings about this post, as it’s akin to airing dirty laundry.  My experience with using the search function on this site has been frustrating, to put it mildly.  Although I continue to tweak the site (mostly focusing on the Forum at present), I’ve never tackled the Search function as frankly it’s way beyond my understanding of XHTML.  But there’s a better way.

And of course, it involves Google.  I hate to send you away from the site to search the site, but this is much more effective than the built-in search function.  Visit http://blogsearch.google.com

As indicated above, click on “Advanced Blog Search;” you’ll see the following (click on any of these images for a close-up):

The search fields are self explanatory.  Of note is that you can specify a date range and number of results which will be returned. Search for Red Oxx, as shown above, the results are logical – direct articles in which Red Oxx is in the article title are given priority:

Of course this is a great tool not only for searching this site, but for any blog.  Check it out, and keep it in mind the next time you’re searching for an old post you remember!