TS site SEARCH OPTION

[Alan SHARP]

New members and old.

Don't be in to much of a hurry to scroll down from the TalkingScot.com opening banner's search and advanced search options.

Following the options, in the advance search mode, will quickly highlight any previous reference, on this site, to your name/s of interest. Quicker and more productive, than leafing through all the threads on all the forums.

In my case by typing in [ - Alan + SHARP ] I instantly get to see all the times SHARP is in print, and excluding all the Alan SHARP signatures, to my posts.

A BRILLIANT service, as you never know what you might have missed. When did you last check ?

Happy hunting,

Alan SHARP.

[Tracey]

Morning Alan

This and many more ways to make the most of your time searching etc on TS can be found here
viewforum.php?f=60 the *How To* section.

Its always good to refresh people's attention

[Currie]

Hello Tracey & Alan,

If it allows access by search engine bots (Web Robots) you can also search a forum, or any other web site, by using Google Advanced Search http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Just type the first part of the site name in the “Search within a site or domain” box and the word or phrase you’re searching for in the appropriate place.

For example, searching for the phrase “Tombola Ticket Sales window” within the TS site gives this result: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q ... afe=images

Note how it is set out in the Google search box as "Tombola Ticket Sales window" site:http://www.talkingscot.com

All the best,
Alan

[Alan SHARP]

Thanks Tracey and Alan (Currie)

I have had limited experience with forums. Have only previously been briefly active on two with very specific "specialist" research questions for their active members, so not that familiar with their operation and systems, but GOOGLE searches have often taken me on to forum threads, enough to realize the forum that TalkingScot uses, to me, looks like a customised "Off the shelf" product, so when I first joined, I had to ask RUSSELL to please explain all the padlocks. Nearly all the threads that looked as though they had advice, for the new user, appeared to carry a padlock, and would not let me in.

Slowly I have learnt as I have gone, but did a lot of scrolling through old forums, before I got into the advanced search facility using the + & - options. I therefore decided to share my experience.

My GOOGLED [SHARP] combinations did not bring me to all the TS references, or at least not on the first few pages of the hits offered. Some times the hits can number in the thousands. On site searching, in my opinion is BRILLIANT and refined, so thanks Alan for explaining how a Google search can be targeted at nominated web sites, and thanks Kenneth for explaining how to get images on to this forum.

It is very much appreciated.

Alan SHARP.

P.S. In the first instance it was a Google search that lead me to TS.

[Alan SHARP]

Hi again Alan.

Just taken up your offer of advice, and I'm proven to be in error. Have never previously used the Google Advanced Search, Web site selection before. Never had any luck previously, but possibly like my first try, this time, was not precise enough with the name I typed in the panel, (no fuzzy logic there) but on the second try got RootsChat ONLY results.

As a non member, I'm not allowed access to their on site search option. Their site being large with 500+ on line at any one time, I expected a few hits, but got 4,800 to [SHARP] with just the one site NOT the whole www. Refined to ["William Sharp"] got 451 hits with about 120 of them being William SHARP and not sharp or william + sharp hits.

Then the question becomes how do you find 'a tree' in a forest. Very interesting, but unfortunately nothing jumped off the screen to grab me!

Spotted one family research that brought back 1980 memories of rolling through the LDS films of Old Parish Registers for the environs of Glasgow. In one I spotted church records of an abandoned child, found on the church steps, being baptised in the name of the Lord as "Christian LOVE" and being adopted out, to a couple within the church.

At the time I was a little surprised, but not now. Makes the history of names interesting though !

Thanks,

Alan.

[Currie]

Hello Alan,

You can add other words into the site search to narrow things down. e.g.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... =&gs_rfai=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... =&gs_rfai=

All the best,
Alan