Google search instead of built-in search

September 25, 2007 11:24 PM

How do I get Google search instead of built-in search on Ask MeFi?

I like using the Google search in Ask MeFi instead of the built-in search. Is there any way I can re-enable it, other than using the built-in search, not finding anything, and then clicking on the link that does a Google search for me? Sorry if this has been asked before.

posted by pravit to Feature Requests at 11:24 PM (8 comments total)

you can restrict a google search to a particular site by prepending "site:wherever.com", for example
posted by delmoi at 11:52 PM on September 25, 2007

Yeah, just type site:ask.metafilter.com sunglasses to see every result about sunglasses on ask mefi.

I should remove the dumb yahoo searches from the search box, Google is doing way better these days with more timely results.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:35 AM on September 26, 2007

I thought you had already done that. Or was that just in on the blue and in profiles?

This is how I feel about yahoo vs. google.
posted by philomathoholic at 1:37 AM on September 26, 2007

More importantly, how does one get Google searches to list results in some kind of chronological order? Right now search results are all over the freaking shop!
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:07 AM on September 26, 2007

Effigy2000: I don't know that you can do a Google web search sorted by date, but you can limit it to dates in Advanced Search. I've done this before in an iterative fashion to find the most recent stuff.
posted by grouse at 2:19 AM on September 26, 2007

The Google Blog search can sort by date, but you realize quickly how less useful that is than sorting by relevance. The good news is that the "narrow by date" feature is right at your fingertips, and that Google considers AskMe a blog.

Searching AskMe for "sunglasses":
Relevance order
Date order
Only in the title, relevance order (!)
posted by Plutor at 4:52 AM on September 26, 2007

"site:wherever.com" doesn't have to be preprended--it can go anywhere in the search string, beginning, end, or middle, and will yield the same results.
posted by MrMoonPie at 5:56 AM on September 26, 2007

I use the Google sitesearch bookmarklet.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:34 AM on September 26, 2007