Since Monday, we’ve been receiving non-stop questions about the “Search Archives” section. Unfortunately, with the release of Depot Central V2, this section has been quietly retired…to pave the way for the all-new, all-improved Search functionality.

Long-time users of Yakimaherald.com will be familiar with our Search Archives section, with a slow and cumbersome webform that almost never had useful results. To add insult to injury, stories older than a week required a $1.50 fee to look them up. Due to the previous way that stories were filed and stored, it was deemed easier at the time to contract an external company to index and search our archives(which largely accounted for the fee).

With the change to Depot Central V2, we now host stories from a modern SQL database, similar to a WordPress blog just like this one. And with recent advances in software, we can now integrate a dedicated full-text search engine into the site, with no extra burden for us.

What does this mean for you, the user? It means an end to archival fees for one thing: in a few weeks anyone will be able to view our archives going back to 1998, completely free of charge(albeit with some existing restrictions: we cannot host Associated Press and other articles we do not have the rights for).
Even better, the search is much faster, and much easier to use. It is already in use for several administration functions of Depot Central, and users have reported it as a “breath of fresh air”.

Stick with us for a few more weeks, and we’ll make sure you never get lost in our site again..

- Scott