Searching Comments

August 4, 2005 1:46 PM

Is it possible to update the search function so that you can search not only posts but the comments? Didn't it used to do that? Google doesn't seem to drill down to the comments (except in fairly new threads) and neither does the MetaFilter search function which can make it very difficult to track down an old comment or links that appeared only in the comments.
posted by caddis to Feature Requests at 1:46 PM (12 comments total)

Yahoo returns much better results on MetaFilter than google does, for what it's worth. I don't know why. But if nothing else, you might try them.
posted by gd779 at 5:02 PM on August 4, 2005

It has to do with it being a better search engine.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 5:59 PM on August 4, 2005

I thought Yahoo used the Google search engine?
posted by caddis at 6:03 PM on August 4, 2005

Thank you gd779. Yahoo drills right down to the comments and I found what I was looking for in about 30 seconds. Sell that Google stock now before the plunge.
posted by caddis at 6:17 PM on August 4, 2005

Wow. Thanks, gd779.

A couple of times I've had trouble finding threads that I just *know* existed. Both on Google and Metafilter's own search engine. Almost to the point where I thought they've been deleted.

I thought Google was considered a better search engine? Something about Google being a search engine and Yahoo being a directory or something like that.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:30 PM on August 4, 2005

Yahoo dropped Google in February 2004.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:44 PM on August 4, 2005

I have always like Yahoo. They are like Avis; they try harder.
posted by caddis at 8:03 PM on August 4, 2005

Google's index is really in the shitcan, the last couple of years. It's not a MetaFilter thing, it's a Google thing. I guess they need to omit a lot of content to make room for all that fucking spam.
posted by majick at 8:51 PM on August 4, 2005

I wonder how google screws up a simple site search like this. They are clearly crawling enough — the front page was last updated two days ago. But there are plenty of pages that are not in their index. I wonder if JRun screwed up one of their crawls.
posted by smackfu at 8:35 AM on August 5, 2005

In fact, you want to see how bad Google is at searching AskMe?

Google "posted by mathowie": 127 pages
Yahoo "posted by mathowie": 689 pages
mathowie profile: 768 answers + 46 questions

You can't actually reconcile things because multiple answers to a question will only have one result page in the web search. But it's indisputable that Google is pathetic.
posted by smackfu at 8:45 AM on August 5, 2005

Can I mention my little pony? The URL search on the "post-a-link" pages rules. Best method of any for finding links in FPPs, by far.

Could we get the same algorithm added the MeFi search page as like a "URL search" or something?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 9:55 AM on August 5, 2005

I have always like Yahoo. They are like Avis; they try harder.

With my 2:30 in the morning bleary eyes, I read that as the Axis.
posted by Edible Energy at 11:13 PM on August 12, 2005