Search enhancement request so that HelpHub contents will be included in the result

[atachibana]

If you use the search bar on ​https://wordpress.org/support, you will see that it neither includes HelpHub articles nor excludes Codex ones.

I feel that we should well be

1. including HelpHub in it and
2. adding a tab for specific search
3. removing Codex indexing

Also, search bar should say "Search documentation and forums" or something along those lines and not just forums?

Releated discussion in Slack
​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RP4WU5/p1543850975111100

[Otto42]

1. Helphub is already indexed. Google isn't instant, even for us.
2. Tab suggestions are welcome.
3. No. The codex still has valuable information and will remain in the search results until we have supplanted it entirely. This may never happen, admittedly, but that doesn't mean that we should try to hide it.

[Otto42]

For reference, this particular Google results page on WordPress.org is a Google Custom Search Engine connected to my own Google account. Getting it reconnected to something more centralized has proven to be problematic, for assorted tax-document reasons. So currently I'm the only one who can reconfigure it. This should remain the case for now until the various legal stuff is sorted out, or until we replace it with something different.

[atachibana]

@Otto42
Thank you. Just now I confirmed the search result shows the HelpHub contents (pages in the wordpress.org). Also the remaing Codex in the result is understandable one.

If possible, please consider this request, too. Thanks.

search bar should say "Search documentation and forums" or something along those lines and not just forums?

[littlebizzy]

Related: #3972

And this blog post ignores Otto's explanation above:

​https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2018/12/04/summary-of-helphub-meeting-03-december-2018/

Google simply loves the Codex and crawls it often, probably because its recognized as Wiki-style public contribution documentation that's been around for years.

De-indexing it would be foolish really, shutting it down would be even worse...

[Kenshino]

Hey @Otto42

Can you clarify if hiding the Codex results on the Google Custom Search affects Google's 'actual' search index?

It seems that there is the assumption by others that we're looking to de-index the Codex articles from Google.com.

---

We're going to start redirecting as many migrated articles as possible and the day that the Codex (at least the English version) is completely replaced might come sooner than you think.

Am I correct to assume that you're looking at organically updating the search results (because of 301 redirects)? So eventually the codex articles that are actually properly replaced by HelpHub ones will just get it's URL updated?

[Otto42]

Can you clarify if hiding the Codex results on the Google Custom Search affects Google's 'actual' search index?

It does not, obviously. However, since neither one is happening, then it is a moot point.

The codex will remain in the search results.

[diddledani]

We don't need to de-index the codex ever. Once the old codex URLs have appropriate 301 redirects to the new URLs then Google will recognise the change in location and will update the index appropriately. That way we can add 301 redirects for the content that has migrated, as it migrates, without the rest of the codex from being hidden or removed from the index.

Edited to add: Also the 301 redirects will forward visitors to the new pages when they try to access from an old index entry anyway so even if the index shows the old URL the visitor will get to the correct place.

[coffee2code]

Closing as fixed after [9597] for #4358.

The search form at ​https://wordpress.org/support/ now has the placeholder text of "Search documentation" (instead of "Search forums"). Using that form will load results from the "Support Docs" tab of the Google Search Console results page, which consists of results from HelpHub. (The tab existed prior to this change, so was likely implemented since the original request here.)