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It Does Not Work

Library > Reference > FAQ > Does Not Work

Your search engine service runs on a redundant fault-tolerant server farm and handles many thousands of sites around the world. The chances are excellent that if it does not appear to be working the problem is at your end.

The search panel is a simple HTML form. Many HTML editors have problems manipulating forms and will create pages with broken forms. To diagnose this type of problem, you will need to look at the actual HTML source of your page.
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Check the following common issues to determine what the problem is.

The search panel doesn't look right - it looks like the original HTML.

When I search absolutely nothing happens at all.

When I search the page just refreshes itself.

When I search I get the message "404 page not found".

When I search I get the message "site link not configured properly".

When I search I get the message "This site has not yet been indexed".

When I search I get the message "This search panel is not active".

When I search I get the message "500 internal server error".

When I search I get some other unexpected error message.

The search panel works in IE but not in Netscape.

The site map doesn't show all my pages.

Problem: The search panel doesn't look right - it looks like the original HTML.
Solution: This is because your pasted the search panel into your page using an HTML editor, and the HTML editor thought you were adding text, not HTML. Remove the panel and try again. This time, look for a "paste as HTML" function in your HTML editor, or, as originally recommended, use a text editor (like Windows Notepad) to add the search panel to your page. For more complete information on this, see the tutorial Basic Page Search Setup.
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Problem: When I search absolutely nothing happens at all.
Solution: This is typically because your search panel is missing the form tags. The search panel is an HTML form and without its form tags clicking on the button will do nothing.

At the start of the search panel (or perhaps at the start of the page) there should be an HTML tag which starts "<form action=...". If it is not there then that is the problem.

It's usually easiest to fix this by just removing the old panel from your page, and adding a new one. You can also add the missing form tags to your page's HTML source manually.
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Problem: When I search the page just refreshes itself.
Solution: This typically happens for one of the following reasons:
The search panel has an empty form tag.
Look at the "<form..." tag at the start of the search panel HTML in your page (or perhaps at the start of the page itself). It should start "<form action=...". If instead it is simply "<form>" then you need to fix the panel HTML.
The form "action" address is not correct.
Look at the "<form action=..." tag at the start of the search panel HTML in your page. The action value should be "http://search.freefind.com/find.html". If it is not then you need to fix the panel. Note that if your action is incorrect, then most likely the various text links in the search panel are also incorrect and will need to be fixed as well.
There is an empty <form> tag overriding the search panel <form> tag.
Look to see if there is an empty form tag (like this: "<form>") before the form tag which is at the start of your search panel. If it is there, it should be removed.
It's usually easiest to fix the search panel by just removing the old one from your page, and adding a new one. If your HTML editor does not handle forms well or if the page is too broken, you may need to use a text editor (like Windows "notepad", not a word processor!) to fix the page and add the new search panel.
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Problem: When I search I get the message "404 page not found".
Solution: This typically happens for one of the following reasons:
The forms on your page are nested.
Forms do not "nest"; before you start another form (with a "<form..." tag) the previous form must be closed (with the tag: "</form>"). Even if you only have one form on the page your HTML editor may have added additional form tags, breaking the one form you do have. Look at the HTML source of your page and make sure that none of the forms are nested.
The search panel has an empty form tag.
Look at the "<form..." tag at the start of the search panel HTML in your page (or perhaps at the start of the page itself). It should start "<form action=...". If instead it is simply "<form>" then you need to fix the panel HTML.
The form "action" address is not correct.
Look at the "<form action=..." tag at the start of the search panel HTML in your page. The action value should be "http://search.freefind.com/find.html". If it is not then you need to fix the panel. Note that if your action is incorrect, then most likely the various text links in the search panel are also incorrect and will need to be fixed as well.
There is an empty <form> tag overriding the search panel <form> tag.
Look to see if there is an empty form tag (like this: "<form>") before the form tag which is at the start of your search panel. If it is there, it should be removed.
It's usually easiest to fix the search panel by just removing the old one from your page, and adding a new one. If your HTML editor does not handle forms well or if the page is too broken, you may need to use a text editor (like Windows "notepad", not a word processor!) to fix the page and add the new search panel.
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Problem: When I search I get the message "site link not configured properly".
Solution: This can be one of two general problems, as indicated by the secondary message which gets displayed:
"User id is missing from search request"
If you use Microsoft Word as an HTML editor and are using the Netscape browser then look here. Otherwise you are probably getting this error message because your search panel was modified to change the "id" field. Look at HTML source of your page and locate the search panel form. In it should be a line similar to:
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="id" SIZE="-1" VALUE="123">
Some HTML editors will (without telling you) change the "name=" value to something else, like "id2" instead of "id". The solution is to remove the search panel and try adding it again, or to manually undo all the changes that your HTML editor made. Note that other form names were changed as well, so it is not just the line above that needs to be fixed.
This can also happen if the line above is simply missing, due to incorrect editing of the search panel, or not copying the entire panel into your page.
"Site map not found"
You have probably turned off the site map in the Control Center. You will need to either turn it back on, or remove the site map button from your search panel.
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Problem: When I search I get the message "This site has not yet been indexed".
Solution: This means that the account referred to in the search panel has not yet been spidered (indexed). To index your site you first need to go to the Control Center and log in to your account. The password you need was included in your signup email. After you have logged in, go to the page and use the Index now link. When the next page appears, press the button to start indexing your site.

If you are sure that you have indexed your site, then perhaps one or more of the following apply:
You have more than one account...
...and you are indexing one, but your search panel uses the other. Each account uses its own unique search panel. When you use a search panel, you can see which account it is for by looking for an "id" in the address at the top of the browser, like: "...id=123...". In this case the account's site ID is 123. Verify that this is the account that you are indexing by either looking for the site ID in the email you receive or by logging in and looking for the site ID near the top of the page (above the tabs).
Your search panel has a bad "id" value.
Look at HTML source of your page and locate the search panel form. In it should be a line similar to:
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="id" SIZE="-1" VALUE="123">
Make sure that the value is the same as the site ID of your account. There can be no extra characters (spaces/etc).
You have closed the account associated with the search panel.
If you have used the permanently close account option in the page of the Control Center, your account has been permanently closed. This is not a "log out" function! If you want to continue using the search engine, you will need to sign up again.
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Problem: When I search I get the message "This search panel is not active".
Solution: This is caused by getting the a search panel from the "resources" section of our site, but not replacing the "YourSiteID" string with your actual site ID. We recommend getting your search panel from the page of the Control Center. The panels on that page do not need to be modified to work.
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Problem: When I search I get the message "500 internal server error".
Solution: There is a problem with your search panel HTML resulting in a "garbage" request being sent to our servers. Remove your old panel and add a new one using your text editor.
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Problem: When I search I get some other unexpected error message.
Solution: This typically happens for one of the following reasons:
The forms on your page are nested.
Forms do not "nest"; before you start another form (with a "<form..." tag) the previous form must be closed (with the tag: "</form>"). Even if you only have one form on the page your HTML editor may have added additional form tags, breaking the one form you do have. Look at the HTML source of your page and make sure that none of the forms are nested.
The search panel has an empty form tag.
Look at the "<form..." tag at the start of the search panel HTML in your page (or perhaps at the start of the page itself). It should start "<form action=...". If instead it is simply "<form>" then you need to fix the panel HTML.
The form "action" address is not correct.
Look at the "<form action=..." tag at the start of the search panel HTML in your page. The action value should be "http://search.freefind.com/find.html". If it is not then you need to fix the panel. Note that if your action is incorrect, then most likely the various text links in the search panel are also incorrect and will need to be fixed as well.
There is an empty <form> tag overriding the search panel <form> tag.
Look to see if there is an empty form tag (like this: "<form>") before the form tag which is at the start of your search panel. If it is there, it should be removed.
There is some other problem with your search panel HTML.
Remove your old panel and add a new one using your text editor.
It's usually easiest to fix the search panel by just removing the old one from your page, and adding a new one. If your HTML editor does not handle forms well or if the page is too broken, you may need to use a text editor (like Windows "notepad", not a word processor!) to fix the page and add the new search panel.
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Problem: The search panel works in IE but not in Netscape.
Solution: You are using Microsoft Word as an "HTML editor". Word consistently produces pages which will not work with Netscape. This means that about 20% of your visitors will have problems with your Word-created site. In order to guarantee maximum compatibility we recommend using a non-Microsoft HTML editor. If you insist on using Word you will need to manually fix each page using a real text editor. This will need to be done every time you save the page using Word. The most common problems reported are "<span>" tags being placed in the middle of forms and generating HTML with a backslash ("\") in a link when the user clearly meant to use a forward slash ("/").
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Problem: The site map doesn't show all my pages.
Solution: It is not supposed to! The site map is an overview of your site, not a detailed page listing.
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