SEARCH feature

[rattler]

(MODS feel free to move if its not the right place)

[RANT]In public I have kept still so far, as for me the SEARCH feature usually is not important as I find my stuff in the "new posts" and paitiently wait until threads that I want to see whats going on pop up there.

But, whenever I needed it it has failed me (and I have alerted the forum gods in its due time to the fact): E.g., should you look for the popular "What are you listening to" music thread, global, with advanced search, or however other way, "Search" will give you a lot of results (the thread is one of them) but the number of threads presented is so large that you need to wade through 40 pages of results to finally spot it (even if you search for the *exact* phrase and only in thread titles). So, you try for "music", What comes up? 469 results, "Israel, Heroes or Terrorists" being one of the first of them, but not one music thread...

Since I alerted RedLeg some time ago (and offering partial solutions) about the - with all due respect to the rest of the forum - truly shitty search feature I have not found that anything has changed, and what happened to me today is kind of the top of the pops in this respect and cost me of my precious life time more than I was willing to sacrifice:

I am searching for one of my own posts, as I need a link I posted there and later forgot, for another site. Would you belive I cannot retrieve it (and havent managed to after 45 minutes) despite knowing exactly what the thread and the post is about? I have tried various approaches. through "Search" One, e.g. should be the keyword "Raimundo Amador". I know I have posted about him in this post I am searching for, and in at least three more.

But, try for yourself, searching for either or both keywords does not yield one result, NOT ONE!!! (there should pop up at least three).

So, I decide to search for "guitar", "hero" or "guitar hero", because I recall I dubbed Amador that way. One result (should agin be at least three, as I dubbed Styngwie, SRV etc. also as "guitar heros" expressively in posts that I recall), and it is like the forum software wants to make ridicule of my efforts: http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/rules-war-col-brett-wyrick-t11697.html

Now, does this result make sense to anybody here? "Guitar Hero"??

OK. so I look for "song": 500 posts (great! you would think...), but they are all ridiculous: Why did Germany lose WW2? is the top result, 2nd is Teaching math in the UK... Personally, I cannot find "song" in any of them...

Etc., etc., I cannot find my post whatever I try, and I thought after having alerted the forum gods and nothing happened time ago now I make this public to see whether others face the same problem. [/RANT]

From my POV the "Search" feature needs a severe overhaul, there are great solutions out there for vBulletin forum software, but you need to employ them.

Maybe a little pressure from the users might help?

Rattler

P.S.: And should somebody accidentally find my (three) posts mentioning "Raimundo Amador" (maybe they turn up if you look for "fish"? :sarc, please send me a PM, need the link to the interview about the vid with his brother. R.

 

[Redleg]

I'll take a look at it again. The search database may need to be re-indexed and that takes many hours.

 

[rattler]

I'll take a look at it again. The search database may need to be re-indexed and that takes many hours.

Thanks.

What do you run, full text index?

The vB search engine sucks traditionally, one of the reasons (but there were more at the time) to move to SMF and run my forums under their software. vBs search engine has real problems when you look for just one word, the result producing routines are way from being refined, and you cannot really stub together your own index and options.

Still, though I dont know what version you are running, 3.x or 4.x, there are some mods that might be of interest as they can partially palliate the symptoms (implementing google search into your forum might improve things significantly, or tuning the vB search engine):

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=235461

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=204517

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=263440

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=241563&page=3

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=253313

Hope this is of any help,

Rattler

 

[Redleg]

I've added Google search now, and I'll look at other options for the forum search later this week.

 

[rattler]

I've added Google search now, and I'll look at other options for the forum search later this week.

Heartfelt "Attaboy" for Redleg and Google: This thingy works! I found all posts I could not before within the first three results, even my Raimundo Amador post turned up (#2, but this only because the starting post of this topic, where I complained aboput the search results before the upgrade, was younger) when just searching for "Amador".

:bravo:

Rattler