Utilising local and Bing search simultaneously

  • Resolved mportelli

    (@mportelli)


    4 years, 9 months ago

    Hi,

    I’m really loving this plugin and find it very helpful for including Bing search on my site and seamlessly plugging in to the in-built search to be displayed as the theme, however i have one issue i’m hoping i can get some help with.

    I would like to consolidate the local search (internal site search) and the Bing search (via plugin) so that only one search box is needed and the results show on a single page. Before delving into some custom coding, i was wondering if anyone had a standard way of doing this?

    Currently, only Bing results show up when using the Search and i’ve had to introduce another search plugin for internal site search thereby having 2 searches…which is not ideal.

    Also, i tried including the URL of our site in Bing custom search and “super boosting” it but that does nothing.

    Thanks in advance.

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by mportelli.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author Steve Bruner

    (@sbruner)

    @mportelli — sorry for the late reply.

    There are a few choices here:

    1) You can include as many sites as you want for each Bing Search Instance. This way the results are combined into one search.
    2) You can use a tabbed interface which allows you to use different Bing Search Instances at once.

    Let me know if that helps.

    Thread Starter mportelli

    (@mportelli)

    Thanks for getting back to me @sbruner

    I managed to do this using some custom php coding in the end as i couldn’t find any other way around it. I made it so that an internal search and Bing search will run simultaneously and output the results on a single page – https://maltavirtualmall.com/

    It may not be the most efficient way of implementing this but it seems to work well for the most part without being overly complex.

    I am intrigued with regards to the tabbed instances comment you made though so i may look into this. Is this customisable via the Bing Custom Search interface as opposed to the plugin?

    Note that i am using the Sydney theme for my site if that makes any difference.

    Thanks.

    Plugin Author Steve Bruner

    (@sbruner)

    The tabbed UI would work great for this. Here’s what you would do:
    1. Create two instances in Bing: one pointing to your internal url, and one pointing to your external. Each instance will then only index the appropriate content.

    2. Install and active the Piklist plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/piklist/

    3. The Bing settings page in WordPress will now be a repeater field where you can add the information for your multiple instances. Once you enter the data you’re all set.

    You can even create a third instance in Bing that indexes BOTH internal and external so you can include an ALL option for your search.

    Does that make sense?

    Plugin Author Steve Bruner

    (@sbruner)

    I’m going to mark this resolved. If you’re still having issues please open another ticket.

    Thread Starter mportelli

    (@mportelli)

    Apologies for not replying earlier @sbruner

    Yes that’s fine. Thanks again for your help.
    I’ll be sure to look into the solution your suggested.

    Plugin Author Steve Bruner

    (@sbruner)

    Great. Let me know if you need anything else.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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