Brothers and Sisters! Let me hear a “Hallelujah!”
It is a great day for me. The Church has adopted secular technology, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Sorry – allow me to explain.
Over the past few years, the Church has made fantastic strides to improve their internet presence and use of online technology. And I love it. I am grateful to those techno-people who are making it happen.
But, to me, there has been one glaring weakness in the Church website, LDS.org. An ugly, ugly flaw.
The search function.
It was terrible. And somehow it never seemed to get better. Does that sound judgmental? I had such a hard time finding the talks or articles that I wanted to find, that I would get frustrated enough to leave LDS.org and use Google. (gasp!)
It is true. It was easier for me to go to Google and type in “Faust, Amish, Forgiveness” and find the talk I was looking for than it was to plow through the 500 wrong choices LDS.org search returned. So I stopped using the Church’s search function a long time ago. Don’t judge me – I still attend all my meetings.
This did not shake my testimony. I had faith that one day, we would be able to move to a higher law. Line upon line, precept on precept. (2 Nephi 28:30 not the song from Saturday’s Warrior)
Today I received an email from the Church, telling me that the new “LDS.org Harnesses the Power of Google.” Yippee!
It acknowledges that some of us left the Church’s search function, and gently invites us back to the fold. Here is my favorite quote from the article:
Shock-free? Huzzah! When you use regular Google to search for a gospel principle, it seems that Satan and his minions are much better at SEO technology that the church, and all sorts of evil will pop up. For example: DON’T try using Google to prepare a lesson on Adam and Eve, or you will singe your eyeballs and your soul.
There are a bunch of changes to the search function that make it more intuitive and easier. I went and played around on it for a while and really liked what I saw. If you are like me, and haven’t used LDS.org’s search function for years, please come back with me. If you already knew about this, then goodie for you.
It is an ugly world out there, and with the new search function we can find what we are looking for without diving into the cesspool that is the internet.
To read more, about the search function, click here.
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This is happy news. Like you, I have left lds.org to search by Google in frustration only to find the craziest post available.I am happy to hear they are listening to the general congregation and making lds.org more user-friendly. A much needed change.
Good to know all this. I will take your word for it and not search out Adam and eve. The worst search I ever did we had gotten some advice about how to tell the gender of baby chicks by looking at their wings. We wanted to make sure of the info we had. I put in a search asking about how to tell the gender of a chick by looking at wings. FYI On the internet “chicks” are not baby chickens as I soon found out. My poor burning eyes.
Live, learn, and watch the kids. I did hear at one elementary school here in Utah they were doing an internet search for bears. The assistant typed in bare insead and the whole class got an eyefull. They had to contact the parents and offer therapy for it all. Oh goodness.
This is good news. But for those who still want to use Google, you can tell Google to search a specific site. For example, the search “site:lds.org adam and eve” returns lots of information about Adam and Eve without searing your eyeballs or your soul. 🙂
This is very helpful to discover and will make preparing lessons so much easier. It has been hard walking through the “pasture” without getting **** on my shoes.
This is so funny.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one, and that I wasn’t LDS search-impaired this whole time.
Thanks for the heads up. It had been so long since I had tried to search for something there that I had forgotten LSD.org even had a search feature.
I see that Satan got to Mormon Village–searching for LSD of all things. jk! I’m laughing with, not at. Sorta like when MMM writes, ” . . . to search ‘fro’ approved gospel . . . ” Love knowing I’m not alone in the challenge of correct spellink, uhhhhh.
AMEN! Unless you knew the quote WORD FOR WORD (and probably punctuation too) you couldn’t find it on the old search- and even then it was iffy. I guess I’ll have to give it a try again.
“Hallelujah!” This will definitely improve my life and I wouldn’t have known it if you hadn’t blogged about it!
I have long hated the lds.org search engine. I have in fact filled out several comment forms to them detailing the ridiculous issues I’ve had with not finding talks that I knew existed. I say amen to your hallelujah!
Thanks for the info. I too used google, with lds.org in the search box plus the topic I wanted.
That’s amazing news! I’d given up on the sear ch function, and contented myself with lack of knowledge. This is so much better!
And then there’s me, who STOPPED reading BEFORE your warning, got my eyes and soul seared, and THEN came back and saw your DON’T. Thanks for that. 🙂 And Hooray for a better search function! Now if I could only find the ancient articles about seven years supply of food. 😛
Umm. Oops! Sorry about that. For future reference, finish the paragraph before flitting off to something else.
Yay!
I’ve used the new search function a few times now. It works so much better than the old one.
Being tempted by Satan – and the suggestion on your blog – I searched “Adam and Eve” on regular Google. My goodness. My eyeballs were seared.
But in truth, thank you for updating your readers about this situation. Like you said, the church moves line upon line and Satan tends to take those lines and make them squiggly instead of straight.
Great. You are one of “those people” that has to see for themselves. I warned you.
I’m with you. I used to just google the phrase along with lds.org in the search box and find what I wanted much faster than I could on lds.org. I’m glad they have finally “quickened” the search feature. I’ll have to check it out.