Those of us who regularly volunteer in the Community Support Forums are well acquainted with user frustrations when it comes to getting a timely answer to an urgent question. What doesn’t always seem obvious is that answers to many of the questions asked in the forums can be found in one of the best resources around – The WordPress.com Support Site.
Search the WordPress.com Support Site
There are several ways to navigate around the Support site once you’ve landed there, such as the Topics links. My favorite is to go directly to the Search box
and enter a natural phrase or keyword, such as “delete site”, “remove content” “comments”.
Search the Community Forums
With the introduction of Jetpack Search to the Support site in June 2020, forum discussions are no longer included in Support search results, but you can search the forum directly using the Search box at the top of the community forums.
You might just be surprised by the number of people who have asked a question similar to yours in the past, but keep in mind that while the Support Docs are continuously updated, forum discussions from even 6 months or a year ago may overlook new features that have been introduced since then.
Contextual Search in Your Site’s Dashboard
Pro tip! Did you know that your site’s WordPress.com Dashboard has contextual help? As long as you are using the default WordPress.com dashboard, and not WP Admin, clicking on the help bubble in the lower right corner of your screen will open the contextual help and the information given there will change depending on which page of the Dashboard you are on.
Conclusion, it is!
Use these tips to polish your skills as a Search Jedi. Of course, if you encounter a rip in the Force and your site is suddenly not behaving as it should or involves a technical problem you cannot solve on your own, reach out to Support directly via the contact support form linked at the bottom of your site’s Home dashboard. That will always bring you to the highest level of support you are eligible for under your WordPress.com plan.
Meanwhile, use the Force, Luke!
This post was originally published in 2013 and updated in August 2021
Featured Image: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND Zeetz Jones on flickr
WPcomMaven 
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