Just on the general topic of site search, this is what I use on my site (names changed):

    <form action="http://www.google.com/search" method="get">
      <input type="hidden" name="sitesearch" value="news.ycombinator.com">
      <input type="text" name="q" size="20">
      <input type="submit" value="search" name="submit">
   </form>