Search Function - FAQ results

[Wazoo]

here's a page in the original Spamcop FAQ addressing misdirected bounces, corrections, and a specific entry on Qmail:

http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html

(to save Wazoo the time of posting the obligatory "you could have just searched the FAQ..." statement, this page didn't come up in a first attempt search using the "spamcop forum and spamcop FaQ" search option. I had to switch it to "Spamcop.net and original FAQ". the first attempt (search terms: qmail bounce) was just a wash of people who had qmail messages somewhere in their posts. I.e., qmail 8481 invoked from network, etc., etc.

Would adding a 'spamcop faq only' search option be helpful? or just one other thing commonly ignored by people looking for help?

Another thought (and likely an implementation headache unless someone's got a better idea), instead of a dropdown box for the search options, maybe some sort of radio button select, that way all options are visible, and a searcher is more likely to select an appropriate one? Not that this would have helped in the above case, but it's a thought.

Doing a search and specifying "SpamCop.net & Original FAQ" is pretty much the "SpamCop FAQ" only, as there aren't but a couple of 'other' pages to be found at www.spamcop.net ... However, this is just the 'original/official' FAQ.

The single-page-access format started as a Saturday morning hack I tossed up ... it was basically moving the multiple choice web-page links tha folks were complaining about being hard to navigate, locate, decipher, etc. into that all-in-one page, such that all could be seen with a bit of scrolling. Then that sinfle-page thing started getting expanded by including all those other FAQ items which never seemed to make it inot the 'original/official' FAQ.

It was while working on yet another FAQ interface that I ran into issues trying to clean up, correct, fix the 'original/official' FAQ suvh that the 'embedded FAQ' here would actually end up gave correct data in all the entries. Some 'original/official' FAQ entries got touched, some got massive changes, some just a word or two, a lot of them still exist as they have for years ... other results are a massive "spamcop e-mail" folder on my hard drive, some folks more than a bit aggravated, a person or two that now only communicates with me if it's a necessity ... on and on ... But at that time, selecting "SpamCop Forum & SpamCop FAQ" would then find Forum postings and those items that I had in fact transferred from the 'original/official' GAQ and had placed on 'new' pages 'here' .... No, the entire 'original/official' FAQ was not 'transferred/translated' as the additional help/data I needed was not made available. And all this work has basically gone down the tubes as the bit of code has not been updated to run under the current version of this Forum application.

The search item being discussed is a Google search tool, so the results are also limited to pages that Google has picked up, placed into their index. The single-page-access FAQ listing "here" includes the title and link to the 'original/official' web page (and that is generally limited to the second-level of those "skip through the lists of titles") .. such that the "actual data" would not be found as a subset of data on a "Forum page" .. thus not found and indexed by the Google bots (other then the 'title/link' itself)

The only way to have the 'original/official' FAQ and the much-expanded content of the single-page-access version 'here' is to somehow create a place where all that data exists in one spot. As stated above, I lost countless hours trying to do just that (and admitted failure in the exercise anyway due to some specific page-data that could not make the transfer [decisions made by others] .. some data I never placed there as I couldn't get concurrence on "correct" data .. on and on, only topped by the lack of effort from that code developer to update his tool) ....

In the other hand, work has been on-going for a while to populate the SpamCopWik .... a massive lack of volunteers stepping up to the plate to flush it out has left it a pretty slow process .... (flip-side, spammers already know about it and have put some effort into spamming that venue ...???) Only fairly recently 'opened for business' and advertised as such, Google has barely touched it thus far, so adding it to the search tool at the top of this page wouldn't be of much help (at present) .... the search tool in the Wikka-Wiki does work pretty well though ....

[Jank1887]

thought it was interesting that the first item in the "qmail bounce" search now is the thread where we were trying to find the "qmail bounce" information It's like Google SEO on a micro-scale.

And, since it is going through Google, would the use of any of THESE help refine what results appear? Specifically, I'm thinking of the Query modifiers: site, allintitle, intitle, allinurl, inurl.