Searching with Lijit
What are the different tabs in the search results window?
When someone uses your Wijit (or your profile page) to perform a search, the search results are sorted into four different tabs: Blog, Content, Network, and Web:
- The Blog tab contains all the search results from your blog, no surprise there.
- The Content tab contains all of the search results from any services (like Digg, Flickr, or MySpace) that you have setup via the ‘Content’ section of Lijit.com.
- The Network tab contains all of the results found from the sites automatically detected from your blogroll, and any other site you’ve manually setup via the ‘Network’ section of Lijit.com.
- The Web tab returns the first set of results from a standard Google search.
Within the ‘Search Wijit’ section of Lijit.com you can control which of these tabs your search results lands on with the ‘Default search results tab’ drop down menu.
Why am I getting incomplete search results?
If you just put up a new blog post but are unable to search for it, then it’s likely that the post hasn’t been indexed yet. In this case the solution is to simply wait a few hours. However, if the post has been up for a while, or if you find that you’re not getting search results under the Blog tab for any term you enter, the problem may be that Google hasn’t crawled your site yet.
The best way to find out whether or not Google has indexed your site is to run a Google search with the prefix ‘site:’ attached to your blog’s URL. For example, searching for ‘site:www.lijit.com’ on Google returns all of the www.lijit.com pages that they have indexed.
Google’s Webmasters/Site owners Help is a great resource for learning the ins and outs of Google, has a form to add your URL to Google’s list, and contains various other tools to help webmasters. That should be your first stop if Google doesn’t know about your site.
The downside to requesting that Google crawl your site is that it can take a quite a while, especially if you have a smaller site. If you’d prefer, we can set your site up to be crawled on our search engine for your Lijit search results, which usually takes 24-48 hours. If you’d like to be set up on our search engine, please send a request to that includes your Lijit username and explains your request.
What does the 'Surprise me!' button do?
When clicked, the ‘Surprise me!’ button will take readers to a page selected at random from your Content (e.g. your blog posts, bookmarks, Flickr photos, etc.). It's a great way for them to discover all of the wonderful things you've created, as well as a great way for you to re-discover those things too!
What is the Explore feature?
The Lijit Explorer (or "bubble browser" as our team affectionately calls it) is an interactive, visual representation of a blog's network. (Notice that we didn't say a "Lijit user's" network, because you can, in fact, explore your way to blogs that aren't associated with a Lijit user.)
The display shows up to fifteen bubbles in each section (even if there are more), with the sections being defined as the following:
- Orange = "fans of" (blogs that link to the blog in the center of the display).
- Green = "friends" (blogs that link to the blog in the center of the display, to which the blog in the center also links back).
- Blue = "follows" (blogs to which the blog in the center of the display links).
Clicking on a blog from any section will bring it to the center and display its network. Beneath the center blog you'll see an information box containing its URL and any other content it (or its owner) might offer.
The Lijit Explorer is an entertaining way to discover the intricately entwined world of blogs. Enjoy bubble browsing!
What is Re-Search?
Check out our helpful screen cast that explains Re-Search.
When a search brings someone to your blog, Lijit's Re-Search feature takes the query they used, re-performs that search through your Lijit search engine (hence the name "Re-Search"), and shows the top few results in a special display above your Lijit Search Wijit.
On your stats page, Lijit shows the number of times Re-Search has been displayed in the "Number of Searches" bar graph and in the "Stats Summary" box. (Note that if you have Re-Search disabled, we'll still show the data, but label it as "potential Re-Searches" so you can see what you missed!)
Exceed your searchers' expectations with Re-Search. Give them what they came for...and more!
Can I keep certain search terms from displaying in my Popular Searches cloud?
Are you being searched about terms that make you blush/mad/embarrassed/shocked/etc.? Keep those search terms from displaying by using our filter feature! Go to your Profile page and click the "Filter displayed searches" link, found underneath your Popular Searches cloud. Enter individual terms or combinations of terms, separated by commas. Once you've created your filter, it will take immediate effect on existing displayed searches, as well as keep future searches using those terms from displaying.
