The last time the search function was down, the admin said something about the index being rebuilt. Maybe its the same this time and the function will work again in a day or two?
The index is being rebuilt. It's taking a little longer than I remembered from last year: it might actually be tomorrow or the next day before it's done.
There's a Google custom search on the
search page which is similar to
site:bitcointalk.org but with some extras. The forum search is worse in some ways and better in others. If you realize that the forum search functions in terms of exact words (eg. a search of
bitcoin ethereum returns posts which contain exactly the two words
bitcoin and
ethereum, disregarding placement and not considering related words like
bitcoins), then you can use it effectively.