on the cheap and sleazy side (www.cheapandsleazy.net)

By G.D. Warner

The Cheap and Sleazy Search Engine

How to Search ol' Cheap and Sleazy

 

Stats

Every so often, I check the statistics on who's looking at what on ol' Cheap and Sleazy ... and once in a while, I see someone looking for a page called 'search.html' -- which does not exist.

Fortunately, when I was in the Web Design and Development program at South Seattle Community College, they did teach us how to "roll your own" search engine ... but hey! This is Cheap and Sleazy ... and that search engine I was taught to build way back when was less than stellar.

So, for those of you who would like to search ol' Cheap and Sleazy, I have some advice:

Google is your Friend

Google is your Friend

Google is Your Friend

The Google bots crawl through ol' Cheap and Sleazy about once a week ... so they know every word that's on here -- at least, on the publicly visible pages.

Since those hard working 'bots are doing all that work, why not put that work to good use? In order to do that, do the following:

  1. Go to Google (or use the built-in search window in Firefox)
  2. Type in what you're searching for
  3. Lastly, add this: site:cheapandsleazy.net

Pleast note the lack of a space between the colon and cheapandsleazy.net. That is VERY IMPORTANT.

As an example, let's say you want to find all the mentions of the book, "Q&A, a Faster Way" on ol' Cheap and Sleazy (hint: It's only mentioned twice -- once in an article, and once on an archived page!).

You would type the following into your search engine window:

"Q&A, a Faster Way" site:cheapandsleazy.net

Searching ol' Cheap and Sleazy

Searching ol' Cheap and Sleazy

"Say ... Will This Work on Yahoo?"

Excellent question ...! Yes, this does work on Yahoo.

Now I'm curious ... so I stepped through all the search engines I have loaded in my Firefox search window! Results: Doesn't work (well) with Answer.com (too many ads, and the desired article is in the middle of them) ... works with Ask.com (also too many ads, and again, the desired article is in the middle of them) ... no joy on Creative Commons ... no joy on Delicious ... no joy on Hakia.com ... works on Live Search.com ... and I didn't try Wikipedia (shouldn't be anything there, anyway).

As I said, you should come up with two hits ... Yahoo came up with two (a quick mention I had on the (moved) main page), while Google only came up with one:

Cheap and Sleazy Google Results

Cheap and Sleazy Google Results

... but I did just add that page a few days ago, so that might be why.

Update (20AUG09)

If you do this search today, you should come up with three hits -- the two already mentioned, and this page!

So, there you have it -- a way to search ol' Cheap and Sleazy, without my having to build a search engine on my own! Gotta love that ....

Finally, if you liked the way this search works, over on Dumb Little Man.com there is an article entitled, "How to Become a Google Power User" that you might want to take a look at.

Update (15APR16)

In the above linked article there is a mention of another article on the same site with a few more tricks you can use in your search efforts. Unfortunately, clicking the link leads to a "Page Not Found" error.

Fortunately, you know what to do in those instances, right? If you said, "Check the Way Back Machine," give yourself a round of applause, and click here!

Happy searching!

Update (22JUL12)

I could not resist sharing this brief (and slightly edited) exchange I had with one of my friends on Facebook ....

Google is your Friend(?!?)

Google is your Friend (?!?)

-o0o-