HOW TO Google specifically for discussions/answers on only online forums instead of articles


There may be times when you want to look for results for a particular keyword or phrase from among discussion boards and online forums. For instance, you may want to know about opinions on solving a complex programming issue or find the experiences of people with a particular ailment or gauge the reactions of food aficionados to some exotic recipe. In such cases, articles don't help and to cut to the chase, you can turn to Google Groups Search. It now gets results from not just threads within Google Groups but also other online forums. Currently, not all forum sites are included & a glaring omission seems to be the StackExchange family of Q & A sites.

Adding Google Groups as a search engine is relatively easy in Chrome & Opera than the other browsers. Once you configure Google Groups as a search provider within Chrome...

...you can type the keyword you assigned that provider (I choose "grp" to represent Google Groups Search) followed by your search query. When you type the search provider's keyword and hit space, a label corresponding to the search engine name would show up in the Omnibox.

Keywords specified while configuring search providers make it easy to switch between search engines in the browser.

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