Do you provide a search function on your portal website?

[MichaelCorfman]

The GPWA website provides several types of search functions.

• There is a forum search function provided by vBulletin
• There is a search function in the affiliate program section of the site where you can search for online gaming sites based on a variety of criteria including whether the site accepts players from a particular country and what payment methods are available for to affiliates for their promotion efforts.
• There is a search function in the portals section of the site that lets you search for portal sites by types of games and by keyword.

And I've recently been thinking about site search functionality because we have made some recent enhancements to the type of searching we support on the CasinoCity.com website.

So this week I thought I would ask members here whether or not they provide a search function on their site, and if they do, what type of search function. Maybe you let visitors to your site search it using google (for information about Google Custom Search visit www.google.com/coop/cse/), maybe you use some text-based search on your site, maybe you have a forum search function if you have a forum, or maybe you have a custom search function using information in a database.

Share with us your thoughts on search on your sites, and tools you think are helpful in providing search functionality.

Michaek

[pompeyrayuk]

Have a forum search provided by forumotion at pokerpeople.

Used to use a wiki search that I created myself but somehow lost it lol

[casinojack]

Search is good for portal sites, I suggest google for beginners

I also like to enable chat whenever possible, live chat PWNS, will increase conversion HUGE !!

Yes there are free ones...

oops started to hijack, i'm back now. Go go search !

[CityGuard]

Search is good for portal sites, I suggest google for beginners

I also like to enable chat whenever possible, live chat PWNS, will increase conversion HUGE !!

Yes there are free ones...

oops started to hijack, i'm back now. Go go search !

Seems like something very interesting. I've started a separate thread on the topic of live chat features on portal sites -- http://www.gpwa.org/forum/chat-featu...es-180082.html.

[GamTrak]

I just read up on adding a search feature to my site yesterday. I'm using Dreamweaver to create my form and hope to have it set up on the server by Monday.

I viewed a video online on how to do it and it seems pretty straight forward, but know knows.

[Chips]

I have search on my forum and also my blogs, not for the entire websites although I am considering added them.

[Betpartners]

I did but disabled it on my soccer portal

My site got ddos attacked followed up the cutomary blackmail letters etc, i then had to invest in ddos protection which for the record is not cheap but while i waited for all thsi to be set up etc my hosting company had to basically block access to the search function as this was the main point of attack.

Even now that i have the ddos protection i have not asked my hosting company to lift the block on the search because i a just too damn nervous.

so answer is yes i had it, no not no more lol

[robertmedl]

My vote: "I provide a custom database search function".

Search is the cornerstone of my site. My sites description is "The Online Casino Gambling Directory is the easiest online gambling search site on the web. No popups, no SPAM. Just tons of free bonuses organized into an easy-to-use, searchable directory."

How do I do it? A proprietary search algoritm that utilizes mySQL MATCH at its core. I perform a MATCH of the user's search terms against several fields in my database, and weight the various MATCHes based on the field in which the MATCH was found.

[raphnix]

The GPWA website provides several types of search functions.

• There is a forum search function provided by vBulletin
• There is a search function in the affiliate program section of the site where you can search for online gaming sites based on a variety of criteria including whether the site accepts players from a particular country and what payment methods are available for to affiliates for their promotion efforts.
• There is a search function in the portals section of the site that lets you search for portal sites by types of games and by keyword.

And I've recently been thinking about site search functionality because we have made some recent enhancements to the type of searching we support on the CasinoCity.com website.

So this week I thought I would ask members here whether or not they provide a search function on their site, and if they do, what type of search function. Maybe you let visitors to your site search it using google (for information about Google Custom Search visit www.google.com/coop/cse/), maybe you use some text-based search on your site, maybe you have a forum search function if you have a forum, or maybe you have a custom search function using information in a database.

Share with us your thoughts on search on your sites, and tools you think are helpful in providing search functionality.

Michaek

We don't much to search in our casino portal so we prefer not to put one. But I do have a search function in my casino blog at wordpress.com and it goes in handy for visitor to choose upon the category or keyword relevance.

Also, custom Google search provides minimal income from adsense, so it pays to try.

[Bently]

Some times a limited search facility can be a good option. Visitors can search your site, but only for pre-defined search terms.

[Herb]

Most of my sites are product-oriented and non-igaming. They are fairly well indexed by Google so I sometimes use Adsense for Search.

When my new gaming sites have been up for a while I'm wondering if I should do the same for them?

[raphnix]

Most of my sites are product-oriented and non-igaming. They are fairly well indexed by Google so I sometimes use Adsense for Search.

When my new gaming sites have been up for a while I'm wondering if I should do the same for them?

I think you should. If you're already gaining some number of traffics, you can already gain some ads revenue even though it's just at minimal rate. Time can increase that up for sure.

[Nandakishore]

I provide the Google text search function which can be used for searching the site as well as the web. I find it very useful even if I want to search my own site.

But now I think I will also see whether the live chat feature could be handy for us.

[CityGuard]

Most of my sites are product-oriented and non-igaming. They are fairly well indexed by Google so I sometimes use Adsense for Search.

When my new gaming sites have been up for a while I'm wondering if I should do the same for them?

I would recommend a different approach rather than AdSense for your gaming sites. In general gaming traffic produces better income if promoting casinos, poker rooms, bookies, etc. directly rather than using AdSense ads.

[Herb]

I would recommend a different approach rather than AdSense for your gaming sites. In general gaming traffic produces better income if promoting casinos, poker rooms, bookies, etc. directly rather than using AdSense ads.

I'm thinking a search box at the page bottoms that can give results from three of my gaming sites*. A page at a site normally contains links to one casino, poker room, etc . . .

But -- I have no idea what results would show, yet. Pages are too new.

_____
*I can point Adsense for Search at several sites at once in the code. The interesting part is if iGaming sites are paying for Adwords ppc. Oh, and my sites are aimed at the UK market.

[vmlinuz]

I use Google CSE combined with the Google ajax api, so results appear embedded in our site, and it appears on an internal page.

I also use the forum's integrated search, altough Google's search often gives better results for that, too.

One another site I made a simple database searcher, with ajax and autocomplete. This is for finding teams and leagues.

[aksana]

I offers a custom database search and soon will offer Google search.

[shovi]

I use built-in search engine in my CMS (Textpattern).

[raphnix]

Most blog hosts also have their own widgets embed for search function. I especially like wordpress though you can't really customize your search query function when it's free.

[RayUK]

I am developing my first site (bingo portal) and it isn't live on the net yet - but at the moment I have the built in text search module (Joomla CMS) and that seems to work well. Not sure yet whether to just have it on the front page or all pages but probably the former.