Should site search be automatically switched to google?

Question

Disclaimer: I have seen Best way to search AskUbuntu, and even upvoted it, but still... I find that the search box on the main page (and live duplicate search) is quite sloppy by default.

I can explain myself better with an example. I am sure this is a duplicate (at least): https://askubuntu.com/questions/436371/i-need-to-dual-boot-windows-8-and-ubuntu-13-10-and-am-not-a-techie, so I go to vote for closing as such.

The proposed duplicate lists are really not spot on; even searching with the search box "windows 8 ubuntu alongside" gives a list that is far from the most relevant/voted/whatever: https://askubuntu.com/search?tab=votes&q=%20windows%208%20ubuntu%20alongside --- the most voted result is at 10 votes, I am SURE there is a better one...

The second spot on a google "site:askubuntu.com windows 8 ubuntu alongside" gives the question: Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI (and the first one is a duplicate to the right one).

So my question is: shouldn't the google.com "site:askubuntu.com..." be the default search method? Maybe this could help with the swamping number of duplicate black screen question over there?

Answer 1

this is too large to add as a comment but here goes.

I kinda like the sloppiness of the search box.
I personally don't like it when a certain website thinks that the Google search results are the ones that I expect.

When I want the searches to be from Google, I would use Google by adding site:<url> to my query. What I expect from the search of a certain website is a filtering functionality.
Stuff like these cannot be done using Google. They have to be done in the site's own search functionality.

exact  "words here"
author user:1234
       user:me (yours)
score  score:3 (3+)
       score:0 (none)
...

Other than filtering, sorting options can be quite important sometimes, using Google would remove that functionality altogether. Like sorting by Votes, active, etc.

In the earlier days, don't remember the layout or how it was actually shown, there used to be a text which shows tips on how to use the query you used in your search in other search engines like Google.