Google search for Cubase topics no longer works

[ZeroZero]

Google search for Cubase topics no longer works. One of my goto methods of answering a CUbase query is to go to google and enter a Cubase question. Often google displays Cubase threads. If you click on one of these threads (and there are hundreds of tohusands of them) you were previously directed to the thread. Now your not. Just some useless page

Sorry guys, I am not enjoying the new site, willing to give it time, but I feel like its isolating everyone and does not deliver. Sense of community is currently shattered for me

[gevarre]

Yes. This is extremely annoying! And to make it worse, you can actually still see the first few lines of the text in the google search window, but you can’t get to the actual post, even if you’re already logged in to the forums before you do this.

[steve]

Is it possible that the search engine needs to re-index the forums which maybe it takes a bit of time?

[cubace]

Maybe. But google search engine adopt to the rate of changes in the content for often it should re-index. Since the old forum was quite active it was scanned frequently so it should have been scanned many times by now. It’s more likely a technical issue. A robot hint somewhere maybe.

[HowlingUlf]

It’s a SEO issue until the forum is established more? Maybe we have to revert to this old skool trick until Google catches on the new forum:
site:https://forums.steinberg.net … search for cubase words

[Ben_at_Steinberg]

We’ve done our best to redirect all the old links through to the migrated topics here on Discourse. Could you let me know what you searched for and I’ll make sure we fix it.

[ZeroZero]

Howling Wolf’s link also does not work here, it sends me to some generic page (unless that is what he meant). I thought the old site was going to go read only?
I have searched for about 25 or so topics using Google and I just get the main page of this site. I did not keep a written record of my search terms. Here is an example G search that does not lead to the threads https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=KTnTX5qMDa-m1fAPkL2LyAE&q=expression+maps+not+working&oq=expression+maps+not+working&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQRzoHCAAQyQMQQzoFCAAQkQI6CAgAELEDEIMBOggILhCxAxCDAToLCC4QsQMQxwEQowI6BAgAEEM6BQgAELEDOgIIADoHCAAQsQMQQzoKCAAQsQMQgwEQQzoICAAQsQMQkQI6CAgAEMkDEJECOgYIABAWEB46BQgAEMkDOgkIABDJAxAWEB46BQghEKABOggIIRAWEB0QHlCoigFY7qsBYN6uAWgAcAJ4AYABggGIAasTkgEEMTkuOJgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXrIAQjAAQE&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjaxNSXzMXtAhUvUxUIHZDeAhkQ4dUDCAw&uact=5

I could probably find thousands more

[ZeroZero]

So far, to me the site feels very obscure. I feel no sense of community. I can’t see if my friends have posted (no I don’t want to “follow” everyone there are too many people and some might only post every few months. I get no general overview of how the community is thinking. I feel like I am in a cupboard.

[HowlingUlf]

It wasn’t meant to be a link. You precede your search with “site:” and then the URL and all the searches are limited to show hits from that domain. same thing when you search for something and you only want to read PDF files, you type filetype:pdf.

[skijumptoes]

@ZeroZero

Howling Wolf’s link also does not work here

They meant to prefix your search with “site:https://forums.steinberg.net”, i.e. if you were looking for ‘control room’ help:-

Would ensure that only results from the new forum link would be returned.

[ZeroZero]

Well yes that does work but it also excludes other posts from say GearSluts or VI forums. its a pain in the butt to type in as well. This new forum is proving to be a horrible experience so far.

[HowlingUlf]

You can save a bookmark with a google page where you just enter “site:forums.steinberg.net” and hit enter so that’s part of the page. Then when you invoke the bookmark the site part is already there.

You can only read one result at a time anyway.

Eventually it will go away. Be a little pragmatic about it?

[Ben_at_Steinberg]

You’re right that clicking on various results in “expression maps not working site:www.steinberg.net” in Google gives mixed results with some posts redirecting correctly and some not. (8 out of 10 of the first page of results work OK)

I’ll follow up with Discourse about this.

[ZeroZero]

Thank you for your reply

[Nico5]

I’ve had some success looking at the old forum entries using the cached search results (available via the little arrow next to the search result link). While the formatting looks lousy, the text is quite legible.

@Ben_at_Steinberg Are you sure everything from the old forums made it to the new forums and got indexed properly?

e.g. I just tried to help answer a new forum question about the UR44 and USB 3, and searched Google like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=ur44+usb3+problems+site:www.steinberg.net&newwindow=1&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSxvSX98ftAhWVvZ4KHUP9Ap0QrQIoBHoECAUQBQ&biw=1400&bih=1091

Google returned these old forum titles and links in the top 2 positions:
UR44 with USB 3.0 on new computer (https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=157&t=76936)
UR44 and USB 3.0 Will It Work? (https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=157&t=93580)

Searching for either headline in the top level forum search didn’t return these forum threads in the results:

https://forums.steinberg.net/search?q=UR44%20and%20USB%203.0%20Will%20It%20Work
https://forums.steinberg.net/search?q=UR44%20with%20USB%203.0%20on%20new%20computer

And searching the new forums just for keywords UR44 USB 3 like this:
https://forums.steinberg.net/search?q=UR44%20USB%203
did not return either of these old forum pages that were returned by the google search.

So something seems amiss?

[Ben_at_Steinberg]

Thanks for the research @Nico5 - there do seem to be some missing posts. I’m already in touch with the Discourse folks about this.

[barricades]

Thanks.

Steinberg Forums

Steinberg Forums

Steinberg Forums

Steinberg Forums

[Ben_at_Steinberg]

I’m pleased to say that the missing forum posts from the initial migration have been picked up and successfully migrated. The redirections from the old URLs are now in place. It looks like some of the search engine results have dropped the old URLs, but hopefully the migrated content on here will be indexed and climb back up the search results in due course.