Frequently Anticipated Search Questions

Q: I'm searching for the most recent story about the Kings/Monarchs/other sports team and only getting older results. Why?

A: Our search tool is provided by Google, which does not "crawl" our site every day. It updates our site's pages in its index roughly once a week or two, and more thoroughly once every month or two. So you will not be able to find stories posted in the last couple of days via the search box. Your best bet is to visit the Headlines page of the appropriate section (Sports, News, Community, etc.).

Q: I'm looking for a story I read on the Web site a few weeks/months ago, why can't I find it?

A: If the story you read was an Associated Press (AP) story, it is no longer available on our site. In order to use AP content, we are bound by certain rules, including how many stories we post per month and how long we keep them online. You may want to visit www.ap.org and see if you can obtain the article there (probably for a fee).

If the story was not an AP story, it's possible Google simply never found it. Google finds pages via links to them, and doesn't find pages if there aren't any links. It's possible Google crawled our site after the story had aged a week or so and links to it had been removed.

We do not have complete control over the search function or the search results, since they are provided by Google, but do hope its addition provides an added level of value to the site. We are making some changes in the site to facilitate Google's search capabilities.

Q: I'm looking for a story that was in the printed Sacramento Observer, why can't I find it?

A: Although the articles written by The Sacramento Observer Staff are published on our web site, not all of the content in the newsprint edition is republished on the site. Please see our Contact Us page to get in touch with the person who is most likely to have what you're looking for.

Q: Why does the results page list all or most of the results as having the same title - "The Sacramento Observer - Online Edition?"

A: Prior to May 2003, the title of all our pages was the same. Simply ignore this portion of the results and use the descriptive area and URL to determine what is truly on the page. We are starting to use more descriptive names for current and future pages, but the hundreds of previous pages will still have the non-descriptive title.

Q: I have a question that wasn't answered here, what can I do?

A: E-mail webmaster@sacobserver.com and we'll do our best to help.