I couldn't figure out where the best place would be to post this so I settled on the "Forums Advice" forum. Although I use the site's built-in search function for "quick and dirty" searches, there are times when I know that something is out there that I've seen, and can recall specific details about, but that simply can't be retrieved using the conventional built-in search.

That can often be remedied, though, by using the external search engine of your choice, e.g., DuckDuckGo, Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc., and employing the little known site: operator. I have yet to find a major search engine that doesn't support this operator.

You do these searches by putting site:<website URL> somewhere in your search criteria, typically first, followed by whatever keywords, quotation enclosed key phrases, and/or other operators (e.g., +<keyword> to specify a given keyword must be present or -<keyword> to specify it must be absent). So the search criteria:

[site:jaguarforums.com +XJR +"transmission fluid" -"a-drum"]

would return all posts from this site where XJR and the exact phrase "transmission fluid" were part of the post but that do not have the word "a-drum" as part of the posts' texts.

I hope this may prove helpful to those who *know* they've seen something, can recall several certain specific bits that are in the text, but that isn't showing up using the simple built-in search.

Also, be sure to check out the search operators supported by your search engine(s) of choice. There are more than most people know about, and some are incredibly handy and useful.

Google Search Operators also here
DuckDuckGo Goodies & Bang Operators [additions to standard operators]
A decent tabular options overview for multiple search engines

Happy Searching!!

 

Nice one Brian thanks for sharing your tips.

 

Jim,

You're quite welcome. I have been driven nearly crazy on more than one occasion in trying to find something I know I saw "out there" and didn't have the proper tools at the time to get that information back.

Even if this post helps only a few, at least those few will know about it and can share it when the opportunity presents itself.