[wp-edu] Google Search Integration with WordPress

[Dan Bashaw]

Hi Richard,

At Brescia University College are using Google Custom Search via the Google CSE plugin, and it is doing a good job of indexing PDFs across our various sites.

Robust, simple, reliable and outsourced... Definitely my favorite way to handle search!

Cheers, Dan

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 17:20:48 +0000
From: "Berardi, Richard" <rberardi at georgian.edu>
To: Low-traffic list discussing WordPress in education.
	<wp-edu at lists.automattic.com>
Subject: Re: [wp-edu] Wordpress hosting with LTI integration
Message-ID: <D0F7BAE4.B334%rberardi at georgian.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Thanks so much Stephanie,
I am currently tapping into Google custom search, and testing it.
My goal was to use the WP builtin search, and return GCS results into a custom page that I could add additional elements to (sidebar, etc.) I've got it all working, and styling with CSS and Google fonts (to match the look and feel of the site) I have

I like this approach, because I can see what is going on through Google?s backend.
I don?t have a lot of data up on the testing site yet, so my results are minimal.

If I have links pointing to pdfs, Google SHOULD return their results. Correct?

Richard Berardi
Web Administrator
Marketing & Communications
Georgian Court University
900 Lakewood Ave.
Lakewood, NJ 08701
p: 732-987-2469<tel:732-987-2469>
e: rberardi at georgian.edu<mailto:rberardi at georgian.edu>

From: Stephanie Leary <steph at sillybean.net<mailto:steph at sillybean.net>>
Reply-To: "Low-traffic list discussing WordPress in education." <wp-edu at lists.automattic.com<mailto:wp-edu at lists.automattic.com>>
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at 2:23 AM
To: "Low-traffic list discussing WordPress in education." <wp-edu at lists.automattic.com<mailto:wp-edu at lists.automattic.com>>
Subject: Re: [wp-edu] Wordpress hosting with LTI integration

My favorite search replacement plugin is Relevanssi, but it doesn't index media files.

SearchWP (premium, but inexpensive) does handle PDFs and has weighting systems similar to Relevanssi. Its method of creating secondary search engines (e.g. search limited to a custom post type) is more cumbersome than it needs to be, and I've been struggling with it on a client project. In theory, it also works with FacetWP (sold separately) to display filters on your search results. In practice, this has also been challenging to configure.

Wordpress.com VIP uses Elastic search. There's a plugin to help you integrate it, and a NetTuts article if you prefer going down that road.

(I know the question was a month old. I've been sick and just noticed it!)



On Monday, December 29, 2014, Berardi, Richard <rberardi at georgian.edu<mailto:rberardi at georgian.edu>> wrote:
Good morning all,
What search solution/plugin are you using on your Wordpress site? The default WP search is lacking. Being in higher ed, we use a lot of PDFs, which the default search doesn't return. I have tried implementing Google Custom Search, but I need it to work with the default search box - not as a widget. (I can't have the search box say "Google custom search" within the search box)

Any help/advice would be appreciated.
Rich Berardi
Georgian Court University

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