Forum Search Tools
Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 2:03 am
Search Tools
Here are some tools that can be used to find information on the HomeDistiller site (the home site, the forum, and the Wiki). Links to most of these tools can be found in the header at the top of every page on the HD forum. Use them to search for specific information on HomeDistiller, before asking for that information on the forum.
These tools are
1) the Static Menu for the home site,
2) the forum's own search tool, and
3) this HD specific Google search phrase:
site:http://homedistiller.org/forum [insert your search terms here]
For example:
site:http://homedistiller.org/forum tequila
or
site:http://homedistiller.org/forum "fruit mash"
The HD specific Google search phrase has many advantages over the forum's own search tool. It is able to do phrase specific searches, (the ones placed inside quotes, as in the second example above), which can greatly reduce the number of less relevant search results. It is a whole site search, while the site's internal phpBB search removes many common words, making some searches harder to perform. The Google search has better logical selection (AND, OR, NOT, etc), where you can better qualify what you are interested in, allowing you to narrow in on fewer search results which contain more of what you are interested in. Also, the Google ranking (relevant pages higher up), seems to work better than the phpBB search.
There is also this multi-site Google search tool specifically for hobby distilling sites (in English).
And don't forget the HD Wiki, though that still needs a lot of work.
[The External Link Rule is now in a separate post here.]
Here are some tools that can be used to find information on the HomeDistiller site (the home site, the forum, and the Wiki). Links to most of these tools can be found in the header at the top of every page on the HD forum. Use them to search for specific information on HomeDistiller, before asking for that information on the forum.
These tools are
1) the Static Menu for the home site,
2) the forum's own search tool, and
3) this HD specific Google search phrase:
site:http://homedistiller.org/forum [insert your search terms here]
For example:
site:http://homedistiller.org/forum tequila
or
site:http://homedistiller.org/forum "fruit mash"
The HD specific Google search phrase has many advantages over the forum's own search tool. It is able to do phrase specific searches, (the ones placed inside quotes, as in the second example above), which can greatly reduce the number of less relevant search results. It is a whole site search, while the site's internal phpBB search removes many common words, making some searches harder to perform. The Google search has better logical selection (AND, OR, NOT, etc), where you can better qualify what you are interested in, allowing you to narrow in on fewer search results which contain more of what you are interested in. Also, the Google ranking (relevant pages higher up), seems to work better than the phpBB search.
There is also this multi-site Google search tool specifically for hobby distilling sites (in English).
And don't forget the HD Wiki, though that still needs a lot of work.
[The External Link Rule is now in a separate post here.]