Family Historian User Group

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 11:06**

Spawned from the discussion of FHUG Costs - which showed that a major element of our costs are the search engine

Thanks Jane for your further reply. You may be secretly regretting that just lifting the veil a little is prompting further questions and suggestions! I am spawning this discussion because I want to think about searching almost as part of the Knowledge Curation issue rather than as a purely cost issue.

My initial draft said:

In getting the KB search to also search the Forums are we being effective?

I have just realised that the search on the FHUG home page and the search on the KB home page are significantly different! And presumably the Forum search is yet another search engine running on FHUG servers. So I think we have:

FHUG search - as on the Home Page - which returns results from both Forums and The Knowledge Base in two columns (and I was asking why not the plug-in store as well). This presumably is the algolia service
Forum search: It is available in:
- Basic form - from the search field at the top right of every forum page - which is actually the FHUG search (see above) and returns the two column results page. A clever move to remind Forum users that the Knowledge Base is there!
- Advanced form - from the Advanced Search link under the search box on Forum Pages - which just searches the Forum and is pretty near standard phpBB (I believe phpBB is the Bulletin Board Software that the Forum runs on)?
- Search within search and Search user posts etc - which are all sub-searches on the phpBB system
Knowledge Base Search - from the search link at the top of every KB page and which is presumably some variety of Wordpress or Wordpress add-in search. It only searches the Knowledge Base* (and the CP online help documentation). It comes in several flavours:
- Search as you type - results start appearing below the search box as you type your query - which can give very quick access to a single desired result
- Search on hitting return after entering a search phrase, and
- Advanced search accessed by clicking the "Advanced Search Button"! This takes you to a KB page (which like all KB pages has the Basic search box at the top) with a larger unboxed input field with the prompt "Search for ...". However the results (to me) look very much like a standard search but with "filter boxes down the right hand side" - which are in the basic search results any way?

(* Does it just search Title and Content of KB articles - or does it also search the (under used?) "end fields" such as "Related Forum Discussions" - which include the titles of forum posts that the article writer thinks are relevant?)

Setting this up is probably technically difficult and probably requires some expert administration. Does the cost significantly reduce the effort required to deliver benefit to users? Hence my initial thought, which I think stands with slight amendment.

In getting the FHUG search to also search the Forums are we being effective?

How much do people use historic Forum posts to "solve problems" and do they access those posts from

the result of a KB search,
from a "Related Forum Discussions" link in a KB article or
from a direct search of the Forum?
from Third Party search engines like DuckDuckGo StartPage etc.

I do not think of going to a Forum as the first place to search for answers in any field - because they are often lengthy discussions with dead-ends, possibly dated advice and sometimes just wrong advice. I usually try the vendor's online documentation first or curated knowledge (as in our KB) or the sort of Q&A sites where "good answers" (usually single posts) get upvoted (wisdom of crowds etc.)

If people are not going from FHUG search results to Forum posts in any volume, are we in effect expecting Jane & Co to "put a tomato into a fruit salad"? (and no one in their right minds is going to eat that - even though as a nine year old I tried doing just that for my Mum when she was ill - I also added chocolate instant whip made with water rather than the stated milk because my mother preferred plain chocolate to milk chocolate)

(We of course don't know - and probably cannot easily find out - even if linking to a Forum post from the FHUG search results is actually profitable or just frustrating! My limited experience has not been good.)

Possibly a lot of "chicken and egg" or "cart before horse" thinking above because lack of onward browsing from the KB search results to Forum posts may be due to lack of awareness etc.

In terms of directing users to solutions I see two main problems

Is the information there in appropriate form?
Is it accessible?

The massive rework of the KB has hopefully improved the answer to (1). I would question whether Forum posts are appropriate initial sources for people searching "for an answer to a problem" particularly after that particular discussion has petered out and is no longer live.

"Search" has to be part of the answer to (2) - the other main part being a manual directory type search (for those who remember the early internet). The Knowledge Base organisation into a limited Number of Topics and Sub-topics is an example of the latter.

I am interested by Jane's statement:

Jane wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 08:17
... we implemented Algolia for searching as it is far better than the standard Forum search and is far far more effective the standard wordpress search.

How people approach search is changing and newer search engines are better tuned to how "young people" search. [Aside: Interesting article on the problems Google Search is facing from The Atlantic.]

There seem to be two problems:

Formulating an appropriate search phrase in one's own mind
A search engine then being able to turn that phrase into useful search results

Presumably Algolia helps with the latter - as well as being more technically friendly when it comes to trying to search multiple sources with different underlying formats.

I may be falling at step 1 (or I am still in the early internet "search by Keywords" mind set - possibly a variation on 1), but I don't think I am finding the results of the search that gives the two column return better than the forum search or the "wordpress" search? Now that I am more aware of the variety of searches on FHUG, I think I may use, in order of preference:

Knowledge Base search
Browse Knowledge Base by Topic / Sub-topic
Forum Advanced Search
DuckDuckGo / StartPage etc. (yeah and Google)
FHUG search

Are others feeling similarly?

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 12:06**

I like your analysis, tools like search, sort etc are very important productivity tools, and so worth discussion and your options are illuminating. I suppose for many people it needs to be simple. However, I regularly use historic Forum posts to "solve problems" so an advanced or alternate search can be useful, and in that light I Just posted this on the original topic. Fortunately it should not be affected by your Atlantic article link.

jimlad68 wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 11:50
Regarding Search and costs: As with many websites I would normally also like to use the option here:
Forum Usage Tips
Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search, but this does not seem to find items in the Knowledge Base and seems to show only older forum items as if it was an old abandoned database.
Perhaps Google does not monitor the new KB and Forum? Can it be made to?

I suppose my point here could be that more usage of things like Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search would reduce the Algolia search usage.

P.S. the Extended Search for Keywords with Site Search seems more productive on Bing and Duckduckgo search for forum but not KB.

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 13:29**

Jim, that Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search advice needs updating for the new KB URL.
The Forum site URL is still www.fhug.org.uk/forum/
But the KB site URL is now fhug.org.uk/kb/ without the www prefix.
So there is no longer a common URL that works for both the Forum and the KB.
So you must use site:fhug.org.uk OR site:www.fhug.org.uk

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 14:20**

As a side conversation (that does not justify a separate topic) how should we proceed with this (see my post on Knowledge Curation spawned from the Discussion on Step-sons showing in descendants.) I am raising the issue purely as an example of where we are not closing the loop.

The agreed (by lack of contradiction) conclusion from Mike's post is that
The Knowledge Base needs up-dating
How do we close the loop and get the Knowledge Base updated either:

Directly because the someone has edit rights and can just go in to Nike it
Indirectly by putting a link to Mike's post on Maintaining the KnowledgeBase and rely on someone with edit rights - the author of the KB article or someone else picking it up and executing the change.

And who does it?

Jim Orrell - JimLad68 - who in good faith quoted the link to the out of date page
Mike Tate - tatewise - who spotted the need to update
Someone else - the Article author (but how do they know?)
The "All-doing" mods!?

How can we "routine-ise" this so that such conclusions will get actioned and don't fall through the cracks?

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 14:33**

Unfortunately, this particular example may be an exception to the general scenario.
Now that the old KB is redundant, could its URL www.fhug.org/kb/ become synonymous with fhug.org.uk/kb/ somehow?
Then the advice on Google searching using site:www.fhug.org.uk would not need updating and would allow searching both the forum and KB without the complication of using site:fhug.org.uk OR site:www.fhug.org.uk

Presumably, such a change to URL assignment can only be done by an administrator such as Jane.

Nevertheless, I agree with David that some guidance on the KB update procedure would be useful.

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 14:44**

re the section "Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search" I think I did the original in the old KB system, and It might have been amended since. I do not think I have edit ability anymore and I did struggle with what I did then.

However, there probably needs to be a proviso as I have have just done some testing with varying results. For the FHUG forum FHUG search gives most results, then Duckduckgo, then Bing and last Google!

I'm happy to do more testing and work on new wording, then either deliver it or attempt edit if given permission, but it will be at least 2 weeks.

P.S. I think Mike's suggestion is a better fix all round.

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 15:07**

So this is probably an instance of parking the requirement on the Maintaining the KnowledgeBase sub forum so that someone can decide what update to the knowledge base is required:

Change to the content
Change to the server set up* as suggested
Change the setup so both forum and knowledge base have a consistent "domain prefix"

But it needs capturing - and as Jim has said further consideration - best added to a topic on Maintaining the KnowledgeBase sub forum.

* On Apache I think you need a Rewrite rule* - but other options are possible even on Apache. That said I think we are on Litespeed)

For instance for Apache
To match against both www and non-www host in a single line, you can use the following regex pattern :

Code: Select all

^(www\.)?example\.com$

This matches www.example.com or example.com .
To force ssl www, you can use this :

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.example.com/$1 [L,R,NE]

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 15:25**

davidf wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 14:20

How can we "routine-ise" this so that such conclusions will get actioned and don't fall through the cracks?

As you've already suggested (while I was typing this), this is where the 'Maintaining the Knowledge Base' Forum is intended to be used.

How to use this forum (19683)

Post here if you want to suggest a correction or addition to the FHUG KnowledgeBase. Please include as much information as possible, including the url of the article, to enable one of the editors to act on your suggestion.

Once your suggestion has been actioned (or declined) it will be moved to the Closed Items sub-forum.

If you wish to become a KnowledgeBase Editor yourself, use this form to request an editors account. More editors are always welcome, and we have a variety of tasks to suit all levels of experience.

I'll probably pick up the baton on this one, but not by rewriting the URL, but rewriting the article in the light of the changes to Search which aren't reflected there! As Jim has discovered, Google is not as good as the forum search any more...

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 15:30**

I'm intending a more detailed response to the general issues raised here, including some fairly major corrections to technical misunderstandings, and a restatement of the requirements and assumptions that drove us down the current search route on FHUG and the KB. My hope is we'll then be able to focus on any changes to requirements, and let the technical support team focus on implementing them in a way they can continue to support.

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 15:51**

davidf wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 11:06
How much do people use historic Forum posts to "solve problems" and do they access those posts from

I may be in the minority, but I do all my searching in the forums first. I rarely go to the KB first to try an answer a question. I go the KB if my search n the forum doesn't result in a good match. This may be because I frequent the forum all the time and often remember that the topic I am searching for has been discussed before.

The massive rework of the KB has hopefully improved the answer to (1). I would question whether Forum posts are appropriate initial sources for people searching "for an answer to a problem" particularly after that particular discussion has petered out and is no longer live.

For me they are the first place I go and I get answers in the forum much more often and usually more easily than in the KB.

Now that I am more aware of the variety of searches on FHUG, I think I may use, in order of preference:

I use them in this order.

Forum Advanced Search
Browse Knowledge Base by Topic / Sub-topic
Knowledge Base search
FHUG search
Google search

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 15:55**

Thanks Helen

1. Putting this issue into the Maintaining The Knowledge Base does look like the way to go, but if you are explicitly picking up the issue, the issue is near closed.

2. The Maintaining The Knowledge Base sub-forum is "the place" for many of the KB issues, but to "routine-ise" closing the loop we need somehow to develop "process".

3. With "organisation" such as ours we can't "enforce" this either by systematic means or by "policing" - we can't afford the former and we don't want the latter. (The former could be a topic closure process that requires a "disposition" of the issue - which could be wish-list-request, plug-in-requirement, bug-report, KB-update, NFF etc. - with a measurement to incentivise closure of topics. All very "corporate".)

4. I think therefore we need to nudge those who regularly identify deficiencies (mainly those of us termed "Megastars", so quite a small group) to explicitly dispose of issues - even though we may, per Adrian's request, leave topics open to allow further discussion. Others may follow the example.

5. This is already happening with many bug-reports where (usually Mike) having identified that a poster has identified a bug, asks them to raise a ticket and they usually report back "done". (Yeah OK if we are being fussy we also track whether "the supplier" is actioning bug reports etc, but ...)

6. So can we develop a habit where all identified and agreed deficiencies get matched to a "disposition" preferably by link so others can click through?

(I suspect the majority of forum members/users? are unaware of the Maintaining The Knowledge Base sub forum, spending most of their time in the General Usage sub-forum - but if they see people putting in the link to a topic in the Maintaining The Knowledge Base awareness will increase. Links kind of stand out!)

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 16:02**

I've been sitting on my hands a few times instead of posting 'Please put this in the Maintaining the Knowledge Base forum so it won't get lost'. Nobody wants to be Nanny Nag... but if that's what people want me to do?

P.S. Regulars will probably do it if asked. Others may not, so do we need a mop-up brigade... Which would of course consist of the usual suspects

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 16:04**

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 15:30
I'm intending a more detailed response to the general issues raised here, including some fairly major corrections to technical misunderstandings, and a restatement of the requirements and assumptions that drove us down the current search route on FHUG and the KB. My hope is we'll then be able to focus on any changes to requirements, and let the technical support team focus on implementing them in a way they can continue to support.

Thanks, I will look forward to that - I appreciate that such a "detail response" requires time and consideration to craft and that is not just the time actually typing but the time away from the system just cogitating.

I suspect we may also be in a "bedding in" period.

For instance I read that Algolia claims to adapt to the semantics of the site it is indexing (not clear whether this is automatic or manual!). I would imagine that within time this might mean that Algolia would, for instance, know that when someone puts in "Duplicate Names", they probably mean "Duplicate Individuals" - which is a more productive search!

Such cleverness would bridge the two issues of "formulating the search phrase" and "converting that phrase into useful results".

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 16:15**

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 16:02
I've been sitting on my hands a few times instead of posting 'Please put this in the Maintaining the Knowledge Base forum so it won't get lost'. Nobody wants to be Nanny Nag... but if that's what people want me to do?

P.S. Regulars will probably do it if asked. Others may not, so do we need a mop-up brigade... Which would of course consist of the usual suspects

I would think that a mop up, will provide "nudge" rather than "nag". It could possibly be done by a wider range of the usual suspects if the need is understood and it is clear that there is a general mandate to "mop up" where a need is seen.

The advantage of a small group initially doing mop ups is we can set an example for how to do it? As a first pass:

A link to a new topic in Maintaining The Knowledge Base with a statement in the original topic that the requirement has been logged - usually explicitly restating the requirement in that statement will be unnecessary
A new topic in Maintaining The Knowledge Base with a summary of the requirement and a back link to the posting in [1] above, so whoever picks it up can refer back to the particular posting where the requirement arose.

Helen, can you see how many are subscribed to this topic (or sub-forum) and are therefore aware of these discussions - otherwise we may be looking at a sub-set of the usual suspects?

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 17:31**

tatewise wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 13:29
Jim, that Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search advice needs updating for the new KB URL.
The Forum site URL is still www.fhug.org.uk/forum/
But the KB site URL is now fhug.org.uk/kb/ without the www prefix.
So there is no longer a common URL that works for both the Forum and the KB.
So you must use site:fhug.org.uk OR site:www.fhug.org.uk

Is this correct? If I use the handy-dandy 'Search the current site' extension in my browser (which uses Google) I get results from both the KB and the forums if I start at fhug.org.uk... So I'm thinking the fix to the advice is simple. Or am I missing something?

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 17:51**

BillH wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 15:51
I may be in the minority, but I do all my searching in the forums first. I rarely go to the KB first to try an answer a question. I go the KB if my search n the forum doesn't result in a good match. This may be because I frequent the forum all the time and often remember that the topic I am searching for has been discussed before.

The massive rework of the KB has hopefully improved the answer to (1). I would question whether Forum posts are appropriate initial sources for people searching "for an answer to a problem" particularly after that particular discussion has petered out and is no longer live.
For me they are the first place I go and I get answers in the forum much more often and usually more easily than in the KB.

(I'm usually the one in a minority - but stressing that I am a member of a big minority!)

I think you are usefully highlighting two modes of searching:

Searching for a partly recalled solution
Searching for a solution to a partly formulated problem

If you partly recall a solution and you think it is in the forum, that is the logical place to start looking and going through the discussion probably gives you reassurance that you are back in the "right area".

But if you are coming fresh to a resource with a vague idea of your problem, what is the best way to get to a solution. With the Internet search engines I will use an iterative strategy starting with a few key words and then progressively focusing, filtering and excluding to narrow down what I am looking for - usually only scanning the summaries in the results page. (I am told that if I entrust a "sentence" to some of the search engines they will use Natural Language Processing to "understand" and produce results - I just don't do "talking to systems"!)

If a user who does not frequent the forums comes to "the User Group" with a problem I don't think they will spend much time searching - a couple of searches with a couple of "dips" into the results each time - max? After that I think they will go to the forum to ask a question to be read by human beings! I think that is more than reasonable; our users are genealogists first and users of knowledge bases a distant ... well probably not "second"!

So part of the question has to be how to maximise the utility of those searches - and I think Helen has hinted that "they" (probably Helen and Jane) have already jumped through these hoops.

My gut feel however is still that a "naive" user will not want to plough through some of our discussions to get to a solution - OK, it's possible that they may find a topic title that "exactly matches" their problem or which makes them think "yes that is what I mean" - which does address the "search formulation issue".

But they still have to plough through stuff that may be out-of-date, may be inaccurate or just plain wrong. (And the discussion may be dead and not easily revived.) It's true that our genealogical data is not as critical as say an Operating System issue, but for the latter I am very wary of taking anything off an un-validated user forum (think of the windows equivalent "Open a command line and type format c:" DON'T!); my caution extends beyond operating systems!

I get answers in the forum much more often and usually more easily than in the KB

Leaving aside issues of recall, is there anything about the knowledge base which makes it "difficult" to get answers from the knowledge base?

is it the translation of your "problem" in to a "searchable phrase" (or a Topic/Sub-Topic search),
is it the quality (principally appropriateness) of the results, or
the actual quality of the KB content (appropriate content, appropriately pitched, sufficiently (but no more than that) comprehensive)?
Something else?

(And how do we get a better idea of what a wider population sample would say?)

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 17:58**

davidf wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 17:51
Leaving aside issues of recall, is there anything about the knowledge base which makes it "difficult" to get answers from the knowledge base?

is it the translation of your "problem" in to a "searchable phrase" (or a Topic/Sub-Topic search),

is it the quality (principally appropriateness) of the results, or

the actual quality of the KB content (appropriate content, appropriately pitched, sufficiently (but no more than that) comprehensive)?

Something else?

I find that unless I know the exact name of what I am looking for, then searching in the KB rarely takes me to what I'm looking for. I usually just go to the the forum which seems to allow much broader searches using language that is not required to be so specific. At least that is what I've found enough times that I infrequently do a search in the knowledge base.

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 18:03**

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 17:31

tatewise wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 13:29
Jim, that Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search advice needs updating for the new KB URL.
The Forum site URL is still www.fhug.org.uk/forum/
But the KB site URL is now fhug.org.uk/kb/ without the www prefix.
So there is no longer a common URL that works for both the Forum and the KB.
So you must use site:fhug.org.uk OR site:www.fhug.org.uk
Is this correct? If I use the handy-dandy 'Search the current site' extension in my browser (which uses Google) I get results from both the KB and the forums if I start at fhug.org.uk... So I'm thinking the fix to the advice is simple. Or am I missing something?

Quick (but not comprehensive) testing with both DuckDuckGo and StartPage indicate that searches give results quite happily if the "www" domain prefix is omitted - and that applies to sites which do and don't normally have the "www" prefix.

I seem to recall somewhere that if there is no prefix "www" is assumed - so if you test on a site which has a non "www" prefix, omission of the prefix may cause problems. At the moment I can't recall a site with such a prefix!

[Perhaps we should submit a wish list request to Google to accept domain input either into a single field or into separate "prefix" and "indexable" fields ...]

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 18:27**

Using the following seemed to work fine for me in Google.

"property box" site: fhug.org.uk

It found things in both the KB and the forums.

Bill

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 18:37**

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 17:31

tatewise wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 13:29

Is this correct? If I use the handy-dandy 'Search the current site' extension in my browser (which uses Google) I get results from both the KB and the forums if I start at fhug.org.uk... So I'm thinking the fix to the advice is simple. Or am I missing something?

Mmm, interesting, just done some more tests that give different results and it might also depend on what you search for and the search site e.g.

[] site:fhug.org.uk "Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search"
- Google gives 1 KB and 1 forum
- Bing gives 1 KB and 3 forum (as does FHUG search but with multiple entries for same topic)
- Duck gives 1KB and 3 forum

[] Google > site:www.fhug.org.uk/forum/ site:fhug.org.uk "Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search"
- Google 1 forum
- Bing > 3 forum

[] Google > site:fhug.org.uk/kb/ "Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search"
Gives as expected just 1 KB

Perhaps the search engines have "learnt" from previous searches?

I have done other tests and get different results from different search engines. Is there a way to force/encourage the search engines to check the FHUG site.

So, although the search engine site search can often find things that a site's own search engine does not find, and can be more flexible, this has made me more wary of search engine results, especially Google, (I think they are generally "weighted" to what they "know" we want!!). And, as David suggests, there is no "best" search engine, but "Horses (plural) for Courses".

Posted: **18 Aug 2022 18:50**

BillH wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 18:27
Using the following seemed to work fine for me in Google.

"property box" site: fhug.org.uk

It found things in both the KB and the forums.

Bill

Yes, I suspect leaving off the www seems to be important, but see my previous post re different search engine results.

Posted: **19 Aug 2022 05:59**

A thought with regards to using the big search engines to search the FHUG site - Does FHUG have a sitemap?

I believe a search engine, when visiting a website, will look for a valid sitemap file. If one is found it will take it away and use it rather than taking time to spider the whole website.

If FHUG does not already have a sitemap file then this may be a way of improving the search results for those using the big search engines to find what they want.

Perhaps a script could be run periodically (every 24 hours) to update the sitemap so it has the latest index of the forum and KB pages.

More information here - https://developers.google.com/search/do ... s/overview

Posted: **19 Aug 2022 10:53**

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 17:31

tatewise wrote: ↑
18 Aug 2022 13:29
Jim, that Extended Search for Keywords with Google Site Search advice needs updating for the new KB URL.
The Forum site URL is still www.fhug.org.uk/forum/
But the KB site URL is now fhug.org.uk/kb/ without the www prefix.
So there is no longer a common URL that works for both the Forum and the KB.
So you must use site:fhug.org.uk OR site:www.fhug.org.uk
Is this correct? If I use the handy-dandy 'Search the current site' extension in my browser (which uses Google) I get results from both the KB and the forums if I start at fhug.org.uk... So I'm thinking the fix to the advice is simple. Or am I missing something?

This morning my search results have changed too!
Is it possible that somebody has altered the URL so that https://www.fhug.org.uk/ is redirected to https://fhug.org.uk/ because if I enter www.fhug.org.uk/kb/ or www.fhug.org.uk/forum/ into the Address bar they sometimes get redirected. Also, the Forum URL now defaults to https://fhug.org.uk/forum/ sometimes.
Anyway, it seems that both https://www.fhug.org.uk and https://fhug.org.uk both refer to the same pages.

Posted: **19 Aug 2022 11:52**

Nobody has altered the URL. I tested it before doing anything and it worked -- hence my query yesterday.

Posted: **19 Aug 2022 14:24**

Maybe nobody has altered the URL recently but there certainly is an interesting mixture of URL in use.
e.g.
https://www.fhug.org.uk/ Home page (with www) has the following links.
Top right row of links:
https://www.fhug.org.uk/ = Home
https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum = Forum
https://www.fhug.org.uk/kb = Knowledge Base (but redirects to https://fhug.org.uk/kb/)
https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?i ... pport_fhug = Donate
But compare those with the scrolling centre pane:
https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum = Forums (same as top row)
https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki = Knowledge Base different to top row (but redirects to https://fhug.org.uk/kb/)
https://www.fhug.org.uk/kb/downloads/ = Downloads (but redirects to https://fhug.org.uk/kb/downloads/)
Similarly, all the other links use the https://www.fhug.org.uk/ domain.

https://fhug.org.uk/ Home page (without www) has the following links.
Top right row of links:
https://fhug.org.uk/ = Home
https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum = Forum (notice the www prefix)
https://fhug.org.uk/kb = Knowledge Base (but redirects to https://fhug.org.uk/kb/)
https://fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=info:support_fhug = Donate
But compare those with the scrolling centre pane:
https://fhug.org.uk/forum = 1st Forums and actually opens that domain without www as a 'mirror'
https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum = 2nd Forums (same as top row with www prefix)
https://fhug.org.uk/wiki = Knowledge Base as top row (but redirects to https://fhug.org.uk/kb/)
https://fhug.org.uk/kb/downloads/ = Downloads
All the other links use https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum or https://fhug.org.uk/kb.

Furthermore, on the Knowledge Base page, the Home link is https://fhug.org.uk/forum without a www.

Anyway, that seems to explain why site:fhug.org.uk works for both KB and Forums because there actually is a Forum 'mirror' for https://fhug.org.uk/forum and its links mostly omit the www too.

Thus the following site: options behave as explained:
site:fhug.org.uk does appear to work well for both Forums and KB
site:fhug.org.uk/forum/ does appear to work well for Forums
site:fhug.org.uk/kb/ does appear to work well for KB
site:www.fhug.org.uk does work for both Forums and KB but finds fewer KB matches than site:fhug.org.uk
site:www.fhug.org.uk/forum/ does appear to work well for Forums
site:www.fhug.org.uk/kb/ does NOT work at all for KB

Family Historian User Group

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