If I google “SN 20:4” I can find dhammatalks.org’s version. But even googling “SN 20:4 site:suttacentral.net” or using this site’s search inputbox with “SN 20:4” I can’t find SuttaCentral without guessing about the correct vagga and then navigating to it. Is there an easier way that I’m missing?
With Metta,
Bob
Funny you should ask. Have you tried this brand new cool tool from @Snowbird
Feedback wanted here …
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Well that certainly answers my question! Accessing “SN 20:4” or “SN20:4” works perfectly. A few quirks exist for more ambiguous things & option selections (I need to comment on that feedback thread). Thanks very much, @stu.
For sutta central search, go to suttacentral website, use the internal search. Don’t put space between the letters and numbers. SN20.4 not SN 20.4
Also, use . not :
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On SC, either just write the number in the URL:
https://suttacentral.net/sn20.4
Or write it in the search bar.
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I’d love to hear any feedback you have. Quirks could be bugs that need fixing.
Indeed, the whole space, colon, period thing was something I wanted to solve with the tool. When you type you only need to put one of them between a chapter and sutta number. Otherwise it takes anything you would expect to write.
On SuttaFriends, since it is WordPress and I couldn’t find a way around it, it uses dashes in the url instead of the more sensible periods that SuttaCentral uses. But using this app lets you put in anything.
@Snowbird I think you’ve upgraded a few things since I last visited the Citation Helper. It worked flawlessly today. Even throwing absurd things like mn–0010 works! Thanks for all your hard work on it!
EDIT: looks like my MN example is displaying here as a single dash in certain browsers, I was trying to convey a more unusual search pattern than it may appear, FWIW
That’s no so absurd. Even mn maybe 10 will get you there. It basically ignores everything except possible citations and flags. Glad you find it helpful!
another thing to be considered is the bad functioning of Google in recent years, this affects to all searches
When I search: sutta SN 20.4, Google returns 6.380 results. However, only 9 pages are available, no more.
When I try the same search with the russian Yandex engine choosing the English language, I can get 25 pages.
If that Google behaviour is the product of some IA, I fear my kettle is more intelligent and costs 30 euro
Google was the best engine 10 years ago. And today there are more webpages than before.
What happens?
That’s interesting. Glad we’re not at the mercy of Google anymore 
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