Feedback about this Forum design - search defaults to Google Site, why?

[lenarr 27]

In the spirit of trying to find answers in this forum prior to posting a question, I continually use the Search bar on the top right.

 

Why does the search default to Google Site instead of Forum???

 

Even as I'm attempting to refine my search, better to guess what terms users here might have used, each time I use it I'm need to specify "Forum."

 

If the search were friendlier, I'm guessing that users would resort to it more often and reduce the chatter here.

 

This just seems inefficient for a company that prides itself on "finding everything." I can't even easily find something in your own forums.

 

Thanks,

Lena

 

 

[jefito 5,589]

I just use the default Google Site, and it returns topics in the forums. Isn't that what you want? It does present things differently than the Forum option, but it still works, so it's not as if it were preventing people from searching the forums.

[jbenson2 2,147]

 

If the search were friendlier, I'm guessing that users would resort to it more often and reduce the chatter here.

 

This just seems inefficient for a company that prides itself on "finding everything." I can't even easily find something in your own forums.

 

 

I totally agree with you - the Evernote form search is very weak even with the questionable Google link.. I stopped using it and rely on the real world Google search (www.google.com)  - it comes up with better answers and I can scroll through many more answers on each screen.

 

The other technique I use is to save interesting forum comments or tips directly into my Evernote program which has a much friendlier and efficient search engine.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I just use the default Google Site, and it returns topics in the forums. Isn't that what you want? It does present things differently than the Forum option, but it still works, so it's not as if it were preventing people from searching the forums.

 

 

Yup.  The Google SITE search searches this message board.  It's much better than using the forum search, which is why Google site search is the default option & it works very well.

[gbarry 2,658]

We're working on getting better search going for the content here, but yes--we put in Google Site as the default because we were finding too many inconsistencies in the retrieved results from the default forum search. I've personally found that an initial search with Google Site tends to be a good place to start, and then if that doesn't pull the results I want, I lean on Forum search to further refine.

 

The forum is run on a third party tool, so it's not connected to anything that resembles Evernote's search functions.

[jbenson2 2,147]

What would be helpful is for the Forum to allow the search terms to include both the user name and the keyword in a single search.

 

For example, find all posts that include jbenson2 and due date.