Search Functions - How To Use Them

[Gary Lewis]

I need to clarify something for y'all.  There are actually two different search functions you will encounter, and they produce significantly different results.  But first I need to explain some terminology:

Forum: This is actually just the first page of the whole website

Website: The whole of Garysgaragemahal

I have trouble with that concept and suspect you might as well, but the difference is important with the discussion of the search functions, which are good tools to have.  So, here's a graphic to explain.  This is the top level of the new navigation menu, and everything in there is part of the "website", as shown in red.  But, only the first page, as shown in yellow, is the "forum".



Now, if I've not succeeded in losing you yet, let me try again.  Using those two dafynitions here are the search functions:

1. Forum Search:

 This search just searches the text in the forum itself, meaning the posts themselves.  And it is accessed by the search line towards the top right of the forum pages, like:

2. Website Search:

 This is at the very bottom of each page on the whole of the website, not just the forum.  It is called Google CUSTOM SEARCH and looks like the one below.  This one does not search the "forum" but searches the rest of the site.


Just type in what you are looking for and either hit Enter or click on the magnifying glass on the right end.  Let's assume you type in "hose" and hit Enter.  You'll get a page like the one below.  Note the highlighted line - everything above that is what Google wants you to go look at off-site.  But below the line are the results on the site, meaning Radiator Hoses and Air Cleaner Heat Tube.

[ctubutis]

Thank you for the explanation, Gary, that's important to know.

Concerning the whole of the website, I went clicking around a bit but didn't see where this stuff is defined...

I am looking for where you insert the title of the entire site, Gary's Garagemahal. I suspect there are some control characters or something preceding the word "Gary's" as every external link I come across has some question marks at the beginning, I really suspect that is something WE have to fix, maybe with your English friend? Dunno, it should be pretty easy to at least find it, but I forget how to get to the actual wordpress stuff that runs this entire site (not interested in this nabble forum thing atm but the entire site).

[Gary Lewis]

Chris - Thanks. This came up because the new header that appears covers the original header-based Google search box, so I had to move it to the footer. And that got me to thinking about the two search functions, and things snowballed from there. 🙈

But, I'm not sure I understand the issue. Are you saying the "??" are a problem?  If not, what are we trying to fix?

Also, it isn't Wordpress, but Weebly.

As for my English friend, he is a Nabble guru, not a Weebly guru. But, there is a Weebly support forum to which I could turn if I understood the problem we are trying to solve.

[ctubutis]

Yes, I am wanting to make the ?? go away, that shouldn't be there and google is going to index that - it's embarrassing.

[Gary Lewis]

Ok.  Now I understand what you are wanting to do.  But, where are you seeing the ??'s?  FTE?  That seems to be an FTE thing.

Go here on FSB and you'll see that hovering over the links for this site have no ??'s.

In fact, it looks like they might have included this site in the voting for top 4x4 or offroad site.  




Or go to Broncozone.  Same thing.

In fact, if you go to FTE and hover over any of the links they don't show ??'s.

So, where are you seeing them?

[Gary Lewis]

And, by the way Chris, I'm using Google's Search Console as well as their Analytics on the web site.  There are just a few links to this site on the web - see below.    I've followed up on several of them and so far all of them show the true URL, with no ??'s - other than FTE.

So, are you seeing the ??'s someplace else but IB territory?

[ctubutis]

Gary Lewis wrote

So, are you seeing the ??'s someplace else but IB territory?

I honestly haven't been paying much attention, maybe it's an IB thing, never really looked into it to be honest. ;)