A Google search option is now available on the VMware Communities advanced search page. The Google search option uses Google's "site:communities.vmware.com" feature to limit results to the VMware Communities site, and functions as a good complement to the VMware Communities native search function.

For IE users, we fixed a bug in the VMware Communities native search. IE users who search within a large number of communities will no longer see a blank page caused by search strings exceeding IE's 2083-character URL maximum. Instead, those searches will default to a site search, which does not encounter this issue.
Thanks to all who gave feedback on search. If you have more to add, please do!
Regards, Robert