Global Search?

Google custom search, surely?

https://jason.ungos.com/projects/one-search-wpmu-plugin/
https://welcome.totheinter.net/2009/05/22/a-better-sitewide-search-for-wordpress-mu/

Tho I normally use sitewide tags to pull in all the content and call it the “search blog”. ??

A google custom search also works really well.

Thanks guys, this gives me hope!

Andrea, both of the links that I thought were to download the plugin at the first URL you gave gave me a 404. Is that one in development any more? I tried the second plugin you suggested, but the problem I’m having is that it basically takes over the normal search feature. I guess I should be more specific in what I’m actually after ??

I need a global search that is separate from the search on my main site. I’m using the posts on the main site as a classifieds post for my members to sell their used stuff, and I’d like for people to be able to search through those items only, if they wish. Then I’d like a separate search form that lives on a different page (possibly my blogs, or in my case “shops” directory page) that would return global search results of posts only (no pages), minus posts on the main site. If I could exclude results by tag name on this search, that would be awesome, too!

I’m totally willing to go in the direction of your last suggestion, using sitewide tags to accomplish this. That would actually take care of the “no pages” caveat, correct? I do have Boone Gorges Sitewide Tag Suggestion plugin network activated already…I have no clue where to go from there, though!

OK, so I just installed “WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages” as well, but I have no clue how to get my tags blog (which I’ve named /search/) to pull in posts from all sites in my network :/

OK, I feel really frustrated. I even resorted to trying a Google custom search, but that returns all sorts of unwanted pieces of info on my results page. I ONLY want search results to include POSTS (not pages) from child sites ONLY (not the main site).

Am I the only one who feels that it’s kinda stupid of WordPress to offer multisite functionality with no way to do a global search?!

OK, not only am I now unable to delete the WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages plugin from my server (it was in the mu-plugins folder, and I tried deleting via FTP as well as cpanel file manager, and it keeps coming back), but now my normal main site search is broken, so people can’t search the posts on my main site ??

I’m gonna cry if I don’t get help soon.

Alrighty, finally got WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages deleted by submitting a help desk ticket to my host and having them do it. My normal search is still broken for some reason, but I’m working on that with the help of someone in #wordpress IRC.

Also, Andrea, I followed the tut on your site for creating a sitewide tag page a la wordpress.com, but it still only displays the tags from the main site. What plugins do I need to have running for this sitewide stuff to work?! I’m really starting to lose it over this.

Hate to tel ya, but the sitewide tags page tute used the Sitewide tags plugin. (or, if it was a really old post, it actually used a completely separate single WP install and a sitewide feed plugin)

That plugin will not go pull exisiting posts. it will only pull posts as they are posted. To jiggle it, you can republish posts so it catches them.

(I was out, took a day off.)

That’s ok, I was just having a really frustrating time with my main site’s search, but I got that figured out ??

Thanks for the help! So, let me see if I have the steps in this process correct:

1. Install Sitewide Tags Pages plugin (redid this, but put it in the normal plugins folder so that i can delete it if needed)

2. Make sure it creates the new blog (done, this worked flawlessly!)

3. All posts published AFTER steps 1 and 2 should now show up on tags blog (this is where I’m fuzzy, but I’m about to go test the theory in a minute)?

1. Install Sitewide Tags Pages plugin (redid this, but put it in the normal plugins folder so that i can delete it if needed)

If it is in the regular plugins folder, it will not work properly. you can try network activating it, but I do know if you just activate it on one blog, it does not work.

3. All posts published AFTER steps 1 and 2 should now show up on tags blog (this is where I’m fuzzy, but I’m about to go test the theory in a minute)?

Yep. provided the plugin is either in mu-plugins or network activated (fuzzy on this) AND the blogs you are posting to are public, not private.

OK, I’ve got it!!

I have a couple of questions on integrating this tag blog into the main site, though. I understand that it’s a child site, but I’ve applied the buddypress child theme I’m using on my main site to it (and I’m gonna have to create a second version of that to change a few things, but that’s nothing I can’t handle), so I can duplicate the look pretty easily. My question is about widget content, mainly custom menus and a links widget that I have set up.

My links widget is set to pull 5 links from my main site’s links bank. I’d like to display links from the same links bank on the tag search site, so that I don’t have to enter the links into BOTH site’s links. Is this possible?

Also, I have 2 custom menus in the footer of my main site that I’d like in the footer of my tag search site as well. I could just replicate them, but same issue as with the links widget…I’d have to add new links to BOT site’s custom menus each time anything needed changing. This issue isn’t as important as the links widget one, though.

ETA: you posted back as I was posting the novel above, lol. I have it Network Activated in the normal plugins folder, and it’s showing my republished posts from my test child site just fine ??

My links widget is set to pull 5 links from my main site’s links bank. I’d like to display links from the same links bank on the tag search site, so that I don’t have to enter the links into BOTH site’s links. Is this possible?

Yes.

Normally, I tell people just to hardcode their sidebars. ??

But since you;re only pulling one blog over to another (and not one blog over to all of ’em) you can do this:

just before the widget code put
<?php switch_to_blog(1); ?>
right after put
<?php restore_current_blog(); ?>
then it will always from Blog #1.

12.

ETA: you posted back as I was posting the novel above, lol. I have it Network Activated in the normal plugins folder, and it’s showing my republished posts from my test child site just fine ??

Sweet ??

See also:

How to search multiple blogs in one installation, and have one home page

Thanks guys!! Hopefully, I won’t need any more help with this ??

OK, I got confused. Where exactly would I add the <?php switch_to_blog(1); ?> and <?php restore_current_blog(); ?> tags? Like, in what file? Where I registered the widget areas in functions.php, or in the template files where the widgetized areas are being called?

Also, how would I pull a custom menu from blog 1 into a widgetized area on blog 12 (my tags blog)? When I drag a custom menu widget into a widgetized area, it tells me that I have no custom menus and that I need to create one.

*headspin*