Searching Posts

[MsMe]

What's up with not being able to search posts?

[vid]

It uses a lot of server resources, so it was disabled to alleviate the recent overloading.

[flar]

you can use Google to search the site. You can restrict the search results to this site by adding "site:forum.skyscraperpage.com" to your query.

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by flar

you can use Google to search the site.

Why not just cut the search button over so it sends a get request to a Google search?

At the same time, I find it bizarre that if I want to see a list of my own comments, the site would generate that via a search. Why not just a query along the lines of:

select * from comments where username = 'ryan_mcgreal' order by comment_id desc

With decent indexing and possibly pagination, that really shouldn't put much strain on the server.

[flar]

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

Why not just cut the search button over so it sends a get request to a Google search?

At the same time, I find it bizarre that if I want to see a list of my own comments, the site would generate that via a search. Why not just a query along the lines of:

select * from comments where username = 'ryan_mcgreal' order by comment_id desc

With decent indexing and possibly pagination, that really shouldn't put much strain on the server.

It must be something peculiar to the vbulletin software they use for this site? I don't know, I'm not involved with the technical aspects of the site and I don't even know what their setup is other than they use vbulletin (I think Mike K. takes care of those things). But I have noticed a lot of sites use google for searching now.

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by flar

I have noticed a lot of sites use google for searching now.

That's because if you roll your own search engine, it's all but guaranteed to be inferior to google's. If google can't index your pages, that's a serious red flag about the findability of your site design.

[crhayes]

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

Why not just cut the search button over so it sends a get request to a Google search?

At the same time, I find it bizarre that if I want to see a list of my own comments, the site would generate that via a search. Why not just a query along the lines of:

select * from comments where username = 'ryan_mcgreal' order by comment_id desc

With decent indexing and possibly pagination, that really shouldn't put much strain on the server.

It is likely that there is a function that uses a query similar to that, it's just that they located it on the search page. I would imagine it was some of the queries for searching through posts that were causing the strain on the server (for example if it was full text searching).

The feature to disable searches in vBulletin might disable the entire "search.php" page, therefore rendering any of the other functions on the page useless. That's just a guess on my part though, I don't use vBulletin (open source is the way to go )

Either way, the site is MUCH quicker now that they have it disabled.

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by crhayes

I don't use vBulletin (open source is the way to go )

How can it be written in PHP/MySQL and not be open source? O_o

[flar]

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

How can it be written in PHP/MySQL and not be open source? O_o

Both PHP and MySQL have licenses that allow them to be used for commercial purposes without having to release the source. PHP has some weird apache like license and MySQL gives commercial vendors the option of buying out of the GPL.

[Millstone]

Originally Posted by flar

Both PHP and MySQL have licenses that allow them to be used for commercial purposes without having to release the source. PHP has some weird apache like license and MySQL gives commercial vendors the option of buying out of the GPL.

vBulletin's source is in php, you can just view the files and hack it any way you want.

[flar]

Originally Posted by Millstone

vBulletin's source is in php, you can just view the files and hack it any way you want.

True, you can get your hands on the code but it's not open source in the technical sense (ie: it's not free software).

[raisethehammer]

welcome to the nerd forum.
Only geeks allowed.

[crhayes]

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

How can it be written in PHP/MySQL and not be open source? O_o

Because techinically in order to use it you have to purchase a license. Open source software is free.

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by crhayes

techinically in order to use it you have to purchase a license. Open source software is free.

I guess when I think of open source, I think of being able to access the source code. Since PHP is an interpreted rather than a compiled language, the source code is right there for the admins to hack (assuming the licence doesn't forbid it).