Searching your Archive

[Tenma]

Lately I've been thinking about ways to make my archive searchable by keyword, so if someone is looking for my Superman Returns comic, for example, they don't have to wade through the archive all over again.

I've run into this problem before when designing another website and the easiest solution was to employ a Google Custom Search (and yes, it works on subdomains.)

So right now, my plan is to employ a similar technique on my comic site.

The first step would be to create text files for each comic, creating invisible keywords by using black text up against my black background.

Second, I'll put a customized version of this code somewhere on my site:

Code: Select all

<form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search">

<input type="text"   name="q" size="31"
 maxlength="255" value="" />
<input type="submit" value="Search This Comic" /> 
<input type="hidden" name="domains" value="COMICNAME.comicgenesis.com" />
<input style="visibility:hidden" type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="COMICNAME.comicgenesis.com" checked="checked" />

</form>

Once I have waited for Google to index my site again, it should work fairly smoothly.

Am I missing anything? Does anyone have a more elegant solution for this?

(Moved from Help Center as this seems a more appropriate venue.)

[Bobadventures]

Have you checked out ohnorobot.com ? That's exactly what it's for. I'm in the process of transcribing my own comic's dialogue on there.

[Tenma]

Hmm... I had heard of that site before, but didn't know much about it. And if it stands a chance of getting me more traffic, I have to entertain the idea.

Thanks for the tip!

[[geoduck]]

I used ohnorobot in the past. While it worked, when Comic Genesis reorganized their page-address system, the ohnorobot set-up stopped working.

[Tenma]

I used ohnorobot in the past. While it worked, when Comic Genesis reorganized their page-address system, the ohnorobot set-up stopped working.

After this thread, I started using OhNoRobot for my archive search, and it's working out swimmingly so far, as you can see.

When did your page-address system change? Mine has been the same since 2003.

[[geoduck]]

I used ohnorobot in the past. While it worked, when Comic Genesis reorganized their page-address system, the ohnorobot set-up stopped working.

After this thread, I started using OhNoRobot for my archive search, and it's working out swimmingly so far, as you can see.

When did your page-address system change? Mine has been the same since 2003.

If anybody still cares after all this time..

I think I was using "comicgen.com" as an address when I signed up with ohnorobot. Then The System was changed to default to "comicgenesis.com", and the ONR tool stopped appeared on my archive pages (although the entered archives are still there, and still lead to a viable page when searched.) Guess I should get motivated and try to get thing working again.