[HPFGU-Feedback] ADMIN: Possible Change to the Main List Settings

[Shaun Hately]

> 3. Most exciting, in our opinion, is the fact that opening the archives
> to all members would make HPfGU Google-able. No more dickering
> around with the Yahoomort search engine. Simply head over to
> Google, restrict the search to the message archive (we might be able
> to create a link that does this automatically) and search the archives
> to your hearts content. Multiple search terms, author and date search
> (not exact ones, of course, but pretty close), the works.

Question - is this actually possible?

I run a yahoogroup that does have publically accessible archives - 
the group has been sitting on yahoogroups since 1998, the archive 
contains about 1600 messages - nowhere near as high traffic. The 
archives have *always* been publically accessible.

I just tried a google search limited to the message archive of that 
group, searching for a word I know appears in the groups archives - 
my first name.

Absolutely nothing was returned by the google search.

I'm not sure that simply making the HPFGU archives publically 
accessible, will render them googleable.

If you want to test this, the group is 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dragwars/

Try doing a google search limited to that groups archives - and see 
if you get any results.

Google certainly sometimes returns results from publically 
accessible yahoo archives - but I do not believe it does this with 
every single message, or anything close to that, which it would 
really need to do for this to be a 'pro'.

Now I could be wrong - there may be a way of setting this search up 
so it does work, but I think it would be worth the HPFGU moderators 
checking out and demonstrating this actually works before they make 
decisions based on it - feel free to make use of my group for 
testing this search - just because I know for a fact it's archives 
are, and have been for five years, publically accessible.  


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at ... | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia