Who's running this site?

I'm Philipp Lenssen, full time web developer from Germany and creator of this search engine. Search results are delivered with the help of the Google Web API. Thumbnails are from Thumbshots.org.
To contact me, send email to info@findforward.com. I love to hear from you – how this search engine works for you, which features you like best, what you would want to see in the future. You can also post in the FindForward forum.
To stay updated on development of FindForward, visit my Google Blog for daily search (and FindForward) news.

What is the search syntax?

For most results, FindForward relies on Google search. This means you can use the full Google syntax (see Basics and Advanced).

What are the different search types?

FindForward combines several search approaches within a single, easy-to-use interface (there's no need for you to switch between different sites, or remember complex search queries):

• Normal Search: This goes through all of the Google-indexed web pages available via the Google Web API. You can use the full Google syntax. This covers phrase search via quotations (e.g. "Abraham Lincoln"), the minus operator "-" to exclude something, the tilde "~" to search for synonyms, and the OR operator.

• Amazon: This will search Amazon and return books as well as reviews which you can expand. If you want to search for other media than books you can append your search with the keywords dvd, vhs, and music respectively. Example: jaws dvd.

• Search Grid: You will see a two-dimensional grid with results for phrases created out of two-word couples. You can enter up to 5 words. E.g. if you enter free love hippies results for "free", "hippies", "free love", "free hippies", and so on will be shown.

• Get Questions: As opposed to the Ask Question option, Get Questions will deliver not answers, but potential questions. For example you can enter Einstein, and you will find pages like "What was Einstein's estimated IQ?".

• Global: If you want to search a topic's manifestation around the globe, this option is for you. A map with the link relevant to a specific country is displayed.

• Just Files: On purpose or not, sometimes people leave their Web directory browsable. So that when you enter example.com/files/, instead of a default HTML page the list of files in this directoy is shown. The Just Files option searches files within those directories only.

• Meta Search: This combines the result of several search engines on one page.

• Backlinks: Want to know who links to a certain URL, like your own homepage? Enter the web address and choose this option to get several backlinks checker on one page.

• Old Pages Sometimes you might want to research older (mid to late 90s) Web pages discussing a certain topic.

• Wildcard Word: This searches for parts of a word as well. Try a search like phil to get philosophy, philadelpha, and so on.
  You can also search for go*d to find gold, godsend, and so on.

• Randomize: Need to be inspired? This option will add a random word from a dictionary to your query and directly display search results. Everytime you hit "Find", a new word is added, making for less and less results, until no more results are available. There will also be a random pick from a quote database on top.

What is the "Comments" feature?

Below every search result you will find a "Add Comment" link. If there are any comments on this URL, they will be directly shown under the result. To add your own comment on this website you can just follow the link and type a comment. The comment can range from "This site is spam" to "Great blog" to everything else you can imagine. This way, all FindForward users can reflect on search results, inform or warn others, and directly communicate within the search results.

What are the results to the right side of a search?

Those are dynamically queried books you can buy at Amazon. To display them, I make use of Amazon Web Services. You can also find a link to Google, or Yahoo.

Do you have a FindForward logo for my article or link?

Yes, you can use the following on your page:

FindForward Logo

Can I use FindForward to directly link to Amazon items without having to look them up first?

Glad you asked, and yes! Use a link like the following:

• http://findforward.com/music/white-stripes-elephant
• http://findforward.com/movie/jaws
• http://findforward.com/book/benchley-jaws

Note: "movie" will search for both DVD and VHS; replace it with "dvd" or "vhs" to search for just one of the two.

Which languages is FindForward available in?

You can search any language you like, to get pages in any page. The FindForward interface on the other hand is fully available in English and German, with a partly translation into Chinese, and translations to Italian, Spanish and French on the way.

How do I change the menu language?

FindForward uses the standard mechanism of content-negotiation. This means it will respect your browser's language settings. For example in Internet Explorer 6, you can click on Extras - Options - Languages to set your preferred languages.

How can I change the layout of this page to my liking?

FindForward uses standards compatible XHTML Strict. This means it's easy for you to escape this layout – in case you don't like it – by using your own user stylesheet.

Additionally, you can use the "css" parameter in the URL of FindForward.com to reference your stylesheet. E.g.:
www.findforward.com/?q=google&css=blog.outer-court.com%2Fsearch-css%2Fmars.css

Why the name "FindForward"?

I want to emphasize finding as opposed to searching.
Sometimes, it's possible to skip going through result lists and directly read the answer. If you are forward-thinking – i.e. if you select the right feature from the search selection box – you might be able to get your information faster.

Can you make it faster?

Some searches tend to be slow. That's because the Google Web API requests are send out on the Internet and take their time to get back to my server.

What is your Privacy Policy?

I will keep everything you search for confidential. I will query Google and Amazon with what you type into the search box to find related information. This happens automatically without any human reading along.

What are your Terms of Service?

There are no special terms of service, but you should know that I cannot promise to keep my RSS and Atom search feeds up forever (of course I will try my best, and already upgraded my server to handle more requests).

How can I learn more about FindForward's underlying algorithms?

I wrote about many of FindForward's approaches in my blog Google Blogoscoped. You can also mail your questions to me.

Doesn't Google object to screen-scraping of their site?

I'm using the official Google Web API. Additionally, I inform Google about projects I'm doing.

How can I help out?

Just tell people about this service. Also, give your feedback to me and tips on how to improve FindForward.

What is your motivation to do this search engine?

I love to think about new ways to approach searching and web data mining. In my weblog Google Blogoscoped I try out new interfaces and searches and wanted to combine them into a single interface.

Credits and thanks go to ...

Amazon Associates - DMOZ.org Open Directory - The Google Web API & the Google team - Jeffrey Zeldman - Everybody who gives feedback, links to, or tells a friend about FindForward - NuSOAP - PHP Community - MagpieRSS - GeoURL - Heavens-Above - Yahoo - Dr. Web - WebProNews - Lockergnome - ResearchBuzz - Shan.