Integration with vBulletin - Replace search with Google Custom Search

This mod assumes you have an adsense account and are using Google Custom Search.

You want to make sure your results page is named something other than the vb default search.php, this leaves the vb option open to those who click "advanced search"

Open your template navbar


find

PHP Code:

<form action="search.php?do=process" method="post" id="navbar_search"> 


replace with the form line of the google supplied code
example:

PHP Code:

<form action="http://www.ahfb2000.com/google.php" id="cse-search-box"> 


find

PHP Code:

<input type="hidden" name="s" value="{vb:raw session.sessionurl}" />
<input type="hidden" name="securitytoken" value="{vb:raw bbuserinfo.securitytoken}" />
<input type="hidden" name="do" value="process" /> 


replace with the first 3 hidden input types in your google code
example:

PHP Code:

    <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="partner-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" />
    <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:10" />
    <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> 


find

PHP Code:

<input type="text" value="" name="query" class="textbox" /> 


replace with

PHP Code:

<input type="text" value="" name="q" class="textbox" /> 


find

PHP Code:

<input type="image" class="searchbutton" src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_button}/search.png" name="submit" onclick="document.getElementById('navbar_search').submit;" /> 


replace with

PHP Code:

<input type="image" class="searchbutton" src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_button}/search.png" name="sa" onclick="document.getElementById('navbar_search').submit;" /> 


find

PHP Code:

</form> 


add this after

PHP Code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&amp;lang=en"></script> 


[fta2k]

Havin a problem implementing this on both skins for some reason it works on one skin and then a blank page shows for the other . Any suggestions ?

[SemperFideles]

Did you install the template for both skins?

[fta2k]

yes template is installed on both skins

[brandon515]

Does anyone know if this will work on private forums where only registered members can view posts?

Also, can google custom search, search the content of attachments (like pdf or word docs)?

Thanks,
Brandon

[SemperFideles]

Originally Posted by brandon515

Does anyone know if this will work on private forums where only registered members can view posts?

Also, can google custom search, search the content of attachments (like pdf or word docs)?

Thanks,
Brandon

It most certainly will NOT work on private forums. Google Search results are based upon the Google spiders crawling your forum. Because Google cannot "see" your private forums, Google search results will not display results of any hidden forums.

[fta2k]

Have installed and running greeat on all skins now .. But what i did notice now is my advanced search does not work here are the errors im receiving ..

Fatal error: Call to undefined method vB_Search_Criteria::get_naturalmode() in /home/*****/www/www/packages/vbdbsearch/coresearchcontroller.php on line 382

Fatal error: Call to undefined method vB_Search_Criteria::get_naturalmode() in /home/*****/www/www/packages/vbdbsearch/coresearchcontroller.php on line 121

any help would be appreciated thanks.

[brandon515]

Thanks for the reply.

Can google custom search, search the content of attachments (like pdf or word docs)?

Brandon

[SemperFideles]

Originally Posted by brandon515

Thanks for the reply.

Can google custom search, search the content of attachments (like pdf or word docs)?

Brandon

Brandon,

I you want to see what Google is/isn't indexing on your site you can go to Google.com and type this:

PHP Code:

searchterm site:forumdomain.com 


Where searchterm is the term you want to search for and forumdomain.com is your forum domain. Google site search is nothing more than limiting a Google search to your domain.

Google does index inside of .doc and .pdf attachments but I've never tried searching my own domain for content inside pdf and doc files. I do know, however, that I've searched for certain things on Google before and .doc files were in the search results.

[Chainspell]

thanks for that thats wat i was looking for

[Verionia]

How can I remove advanced search?